


follow in your form

by violethoure666



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst to Fluff, Coping with trauma, Disabilties, Disabled Ben, F/M, Forced Intimacy, HEA, Modern AU, NOT a Me Before You AU lol, Patient/Caregiver Relationship, Quadriplegic Ben, Representation Not Fetishization, Serious Injuries, Slow recovery, Suicidal Ideation, Thoughts of Suicide, Wheelchair Ben!, internalized ableism, nurse rey, wow they’re so in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22788919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethoure666/pseuds/violethoure666
Summary: Ben Solo wakes up paralyzed and angry about it.A story about dealing with change, holding onto hope, and finding love.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 763
Kudos: 1877





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KyloTrashForever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KyloTrashForever/gifts).



> Hello! 
> 
> This is another attempt to diversify the fandom and include some disability rep I haven’t seen before. Ben is new to being disabled and he has a very difficult time adjusting. There is definitely some ableist language here, a lot of it is internalized or said by Ben himself.
> 
> While Ben is going to improve throughout the story in big and small ways, he will not ~magically recover~ and become able bodied. This is a story about how our disabilities do not define us or what we should expect out of life.  
> If you would like a tag added, let me know. 
> 
> Also, I am bad at anatomy and definitely not a doctor, so I did my best with google and a willful disregard for medical fact. I hope it passes as realistic.
> 
> The title of this fic is from Hozier’s song Shrike which is a Big Ben Solo Mood.

Ben wakes up to halogen yellow lights and an incredibly sore throat. It feels like he’s been asleep forever, he’s stiff and stuck and— and definitely not at home. He feels his heart rate pick up, and with it a beeping sound increases. Suddenly, his mother comes into view. She looks like shit. 

“Ben,” she says gently, and she’s very calm— why is she so calm? Something is wrong. “Ben, you’re okay. You’re in the hospital. You were in an accident.” 

Ben tries to talk, but it hurts. He tries to grab his throat but his arms are being held down. Why is he being restrained? Was he being violent? He knows he’s big— maybe— he loses the train of thought. 

“It’s hard to talk because you’ve been intubated for the last few weeks, you’ve been in a coma.” She’s crying, tears running down her wrinkled face. “And— and you can’t move because you hurt your back.” 

Ben has always considered himself fairly intelligent but her words take far too long to register. She must see it in his face, when he finally does. 

“We don’t know anything for sure, yet. We weren’t sure you were going to pull through at all, but here you are,” she still sounds so calm. How can she sound so calm? “They’re going to help you sleep, not another coma, just a sedative, get you something for your throat. We’ll go over everything when you’re up in a little bit.” 

Ben shakes his head, _terrified,_ but a nurse is adjusting his IV and his mother is whispering, and the room spins and then goes dark. 

When he wakes up again, he still can’t move. He _can_ talk, even though his voice is rough from disuse and his throat is raw from the intubation tubes. He can speak, and he asks, “What happened?” before realIzing that’s not even what he wants to know. 

“You were in an accident,” his doctor says, she’s about his mother's age and just as calm. It’s maddening. “You were hit while on your bike, and the impact caused an incomplete spinal cord injury, right between your C7 and T1 vertebrae.” 

Ben doesn’t know what this means, except that it’s obvious what this means. 

“I—I’m paralyzed? For good?” 

There is silence, Leia has to look away. 

“The reality is that every spinal cord injury is different, and there is no single path that every patient follows, however with that said, the damage is severe enough that it is unlikely you will ever be able to walk again.” 

Ben’s head spins, it sounds ridiculous, he can’t believe it— it’s quiet as he tries to find the words. 

“My— my arms?” His voice breaks on the last word, Leia sobs. 

“We don’t know, Ben. As of right now, your arm mobility appears to be very limited, but sometimes with this particular injury— well it can go a lot of ways, so we just have to see what happened in the months that follow.” 

Months, _months._ Everything that Ben has in his life— his work, his freedom, his body— it’s all been put on hold indefinitely which is the kindest way he can think of to say _it’s gone._

“You’re very lucky to be alive, Ben,” his doctor says, and Ben laughs, humorless and dark.

He doesn’t feel lucky.

***

He stays at the hospital for another month. They want to be sure he has enough strength to _support his trunk_ , which means _sitting up,_ something he’s never considered a skill. It isn’t easy, but Ben can sit well enough to breath on his own, which his doctor, her name is Dr. Holdo, he knows now, says is one of the biggest hurdles they were facing. 

He can move his hands, he learns, after a few days of being awake and being prodded and poked and x-rayed so much he’s pretty sure he’s sterile now. He can curl his fingers almost halfway to his palm. Everyone around him thinks that this is the best news they’ve ever heard. 

Ben thinks about killing himself, and realizes he probably can’t even do that alone. 

“Gaining muscle movement is very promising Ben,” Dr. Holdo says, “especially since it’s still so early. You could live a very fulfilling life if you’re willing to embrace the change.” 

To her credit, she doesn’t make him switch doctors after he calls her a _cunt bitch_ and tells her to _swap spots with him and see how fulfilled_ she feels. 

In a way, it’s good that he can’t knock everything off of her desk. Good for her, at least. 

They release him a week later. His mother keeps chattering away about how his apartment has been modified and how he will have constant home care and company, whatever he wants. 

“I want my legs back,” Ben says, and Leia just goes quiet, pushing his wheelchair out to the curb. 

The logistics of getting the chair into the van are grueling, and it takes forever for the ramp to lower and for his mom and the driver to get him buckled in and Ben spends the entire time looking away and seething. 

He wants to scream, he wants to just walk away, he wants to walk home. He wants to walk. He refuses to cry about it, not here, so instead he lets his anger boil inside of him the entire way back to the city, and as he’s unhooked and wheeled down from the van and into his building. He can’t look at the doorman, Leia talks and he doesn’t listen, just lets her wheel him into the elevator and into his house, the same address, and yet so far from his old life. 

***

He has a staff. His apartment has always been big, empty, and quiet. And now it is big, and less empty, and less quiet and it _needles_ him. 

He can’t do _fucking anything._ He can’t feed himself, even though he’s allowed solid food again, he can’t bring a glass to his lips or take a shower or even piss, he can’t fucking _piss_ by himself. He’s got a catheter which he can’t _change by himself_ . He’s allowed to shit on the toilet but someone has to help him _onto_ the toilet and then back _off of_ the toilet and make sure he’s _cleaned up._

His mother has a bidet installed the first week he gets home. It’s better, he can admit that to himself, but he hates the idea of conceding any ground so he pretends he hates it too and then Leia cries, and he hates himself. 

_It would have been better if I had just died,_ he thinks, and he sulks. 

Within a week, his entire staff quits. The next people his mother brings don’t last much longer, but then she tells him that if he can’t handle in home care he will have to go to a live-in facility, and he agrees not to curse at the nurses. 

Still, it takes a little while to find someone after that. He has Nurse Hux with him on weekends, and Nurse Mitaka comes at night, in case something happens when Ben is sleeping, and he has people come who cook, and clean, and run through physical therapy with him but most of the time his mom there, because he can’t be alone. At all. 

It’s hell. 

So when he meets Nurse Rey, he’s instantly torn. 

On the one hand, she’s too pretty, too much his type, too fucking _happy_ to be hanging around him now that he’s— like this. On the other, if he has to spend another day with his mother he’s going to defy God himself and force his arm to work just long enough to hit a woman for the first time in his life. 

“Rey will be here from 8am-8pm, Monday through Friday, Mitaka will relieve her in the evenings, and Hux will be here from Friday at 8pm until Monday at 8am. I will be in and out,” Leia says. 

Ben doesn’t want to answer, he’s scared he will scare her off if he has to speak with his mother again, so he just nods. She kisses his forehead, eager to leave, and sighs heavily, tugging Rey along with her. 

He can hear them, the way she’s whispering, “ _He_ _can’t be alone at all, so if something comes up, even if it’s just ten minutes, you have to call me or another nurse. He is heavy, so if you have trouble lifting him on and off the toilet we can—“_

Ben closes his eyes, tries to drown out the sound of his mother’s voice, the way she’s talking about him like he’s not even there— like he’s _less than_ he used to be. She does it all the time now, tiptoeing around the reality of his situation while talking to him and then hammering on just out of earshot about how broken he is. 

His fingers twitch as he reflexively tries to curl them into fists. He can’t. He drops his head back against the pillow of his new, fancy, adjustable bed and waits.

He hears the door close, and then footsteps as Rey comes back into his room. 

“Wow, she’s kind of a lot, isn’t she?” Rey says with a smile, and Ben hates that it endears her to him. 

“Yeah,” he says, and then wishes she couldn’t see him. He’s dropped so much weight since the accident, looks lanky and awkward under the covers.

“So, what do you wanna do?” Rey says everything with a smile, he can tell, and he wants to hate her for that but she’s looking at him so openly and expectantly and not like he’s— 

“Usually I just watch TV. I can call for you if I need anything.” He’s resolved not to.

“Okay, well,” she shrugs. “I’m here when you need me.” 

_When_ not _if_ because he will need her, of course he will, as much as he would like to pretend she doesn’t exist… he can’t. 

It’s less than an hour later when he calls for her, his mouth dry. 

“Hi,” she says, still fucking smiling. “What’s up?” 

“Uhm, water?” 

“Sure! Hold on,” she runs back to the kitchen and comes in a minute later with a tray. There is water, and juice, and some cut up apples also. He doesn’t want the other things, but then he thinks if he takes them now maybe he can avoid calling her in again later. 

She drags a chair up next to him and holds the cup of water to his lips, so he can mouth at the straw. She doesn’t say _good boy_ like Leia does when he sips, so that’s admittedly an improvement.

She just sits with him and watches Maury for a while, absently offering him apple slices or bringing juice to his lips. She does it almost as if it’s an afterthought, attentive but not invasive. It’s… surprisingly nice. She talks, half to him and half to the TV, saying things _oh this will be good,_ or _forget the lie detector I’ve never seen someone so full of shit._

She eats two of his apple slices, without even asking. He has no idea why that makes his heart race. 

He finishes the food, and the episode of Maury, and she looks at him. 

“Do you want me to stay? Or do you want some privacy?” 

Ben surprises himself, when he says, “I don’t mind if you stay.” Rey smiles. They watch two more episodes of Maury, and then Rey tells Alexa to put on Bravo, and Ben glares at her. 

“What? You picked the last thing.” 

He can’t really argue that. They watch and episodes of Real Housewives of _somewhere_ , which is ridiculous, and then it’s Ben’s turn, and picks Independence Day. Rey surprises him when she knows half of the words by heart. 

“I know the dog’s gonna be fine but every time, man, every time,” she shakes her head as Vivica A. Fox runs through a tunnel. 

“Of course he’s fine, they survive a massive explosion by hiding in an electrical closet, what could go wrong?”

Rey laughs. 

That movie ends too, and it’s hardly two in the afternoon. 

“Aren’t you bored?” Rey asks, and Ben feels the first flash of anger since his mother left, hours ago. Of course he’s bored. What kind of question is that? He just stares at Rey. 

“Well?” She asks. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Ben says, and he looks at her like she’s stupid. 

“Okay well, what did you like to do for fun before?” 

He can’t believe she just _asked him that_ . His mother has spent the last few weeks going out of her way not to mention _before_ at any cost. 

“Long walks on the beach,” Ben deadpans. It’s the kind of thing that would have made his mother cry, but Rey— Rey laughs. It’s a warm, flattering laugh. It’s a _you really made me laugh_ kind of laugh, and it makes Ben’s mouth quirk up despite himself. 

“You’re funny,” she says, sighing off the end of her laughter. “Okay. I have an idea. Don’t go anywhere,” she adds the last with a wink as she gets up and it takes a second to realize she just made a joke. 

It surprises a small, incredulous laugh out of him. The first thing even resembling a real laugh since— since _before_. 

Rey comes back a few minutes later with a box in her hands. 

“I found chess!” 

Ben’s eyes narrow as Rey clears the nightstand and opens the box. It’s his game, a gift from his father a few birthdays ago. Ben has been in chess club as a kid. He didn’t play much as an adult and now— well. 

“I’m not sure I have the _dexterity_ required for this,” he says darkly. 

Rey rolls her eyes, unfolding the board. 

“Please, I can handle moving the little horses around, the only dexterity you need for this is mental.” 

“Little horses? Have you ever played this?” 

“It’s basically checkers, isn’t it?” 

“No,” Ben says, incredulous yet again, but he’s smiling when she dumps the pieces out and looks at him expectantly. 

“Okay, tell me where they go.” 

The board is numbered, which makes it easy for Ben to call out moves and for Rey to squint her eyes in concentration as she looks for the right square. It’s adorable. 

She’s terrible at chess, impulsive, reckless with her queen. 

“She’s got all the best moves!”

“Yeah but she’s also the most valuable, a king without a Queen is useless.”

“Well at least they got that right,” she says, as she sends hers into an obvious trap. Ben tries not to laugh at her. 

He’s actually having fun, it’s still tainted by the fact that he can’t move and by the looming realization that if he had met Rey a few months ago, he would have asked her out. He would have been able to take her out, to touch her face and lift her up in his arms, hold her close. 

Now, well… It's hard not to be bitter. It’s hard not to hate her, a little bit, just for existing and being forever out of reach. But it’s a better day than he’s had in a long time, until mid afternoon.

“Okay, I have to change your catheter and then we can do something else, I’m done getting my ass kicked.” 

Ben feels himself flush. 

“No,” he says, and Rey puts a hand on her hip, cocks her head. 

“Pardon?” 

“No, I’m— it’s fine.” 

“No, actually it isn’t. Do you want an infection?” 

“No— just, you—“ 

“Me what? You think I can’t do my job? You think I’m anything less than professional?”

“No, but— no.”

Rey levels him with a look. 

“I know you probably don’t care, but if you don’t let me do this, it means I have to admit that I can’t complete my duties here, and you’ll end up with another nurse.” 

Ben huffs, as if to say _so fucking what._

“Or worse,” Rey intones, her face getting serious. “Your mother.” 

Ben makes a disbelieving little sound and says, “Okay, alright. Fine.”

She’s quick, and methodical, and it isn’t as weird as he expected it to be, even though she’s touching his penis. The heat of her hand and the slide of the tubing makes him a _little_ bit hard, but he doesn’t get boners the same way he used to, but it sort of looks like his dick is naturally _big_ , like he hangs heavy. It could be worse. 

It could _definitely_ be better. 

She doesn’t linger, and once her touch is gone he feels sensation recede, and wonders if he’ll be able to get all the way hard anymore, or if that’s another he’s lost for good. He knows he can _feel_ down there because people have been touching it every day and it’s not _nothing_ which might be a good sign if he had his hands but alas… he does not. 

Rey leaves after she’s finished and Ben hears her futzing around in the kitchen and wonders if she’s embarrassed, before he realizes she’s just giving _him_ space. He’s appreciative of it, and when she comes back in twenty minutes later it’s with cookies. 

“Peace offering?” 

“Bribe accepted,” Ben says, and she smiles as she puts the plate down. They smell good, and when she brings one to his lips it’s still hot. Sugar bursts on his tongue and he closes his eyes. 

Chocolate. There is still chocolate. 

Ben licks his lips and Rey finishes the cookie he just bit into. 

“Okay,” she says, her mouth full. “My turn to pick. Alexa, play Indiana Jones.” 

Ben doesn’t bother hiding his smile as the movie starts up, the theme song reminding him of being a kid, dreaming of adventures. 

They watch Raiders and Temple of Doom before Mitaka shows up. Rey makes him promise to wait and watch The Last Crusade with her in the morning. He concedes. 

And then Rey leaves, goes home to— he has no idea, a boyfriend, probably. Friends for sure. Probably to complain about work, like any normal person. Like any _normal_ , _regular, healthy_ person would. 

Like Ben will never do again. 

He turns the TV off and turns his head toward the window, letting the silence of the room wash over him and staring out at the city lights breaking through the darkness. 

Still, he’s surprised to find that for the first time in weeks, he’s looking forward to tomorrow. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your enthusiasm over this story! I am blown away. It really helps me to get your feedback and validation since this is a sensitive subject, so truly, thank you. There’s a couple things I wanna touch on before I go further. 
> 
> A few people have asked me if this a Me Before You AU. It is not. It shares only a jumping off point, but the story itself, Ben’s injuries and recoveries, his relationship with Rey. All of that will be very different. I personally loath the ending of MBY because I think it says “it’s better to be dead than disabled” and that’s not what this story is about!! I want to write about how life is worth living even when it seems darkest. 
> 
> I realize that there is a fetish that focuses on severely disabled people. I’m not here to kinkshame anyone, but I am very much trying to avoid any aspect of fetishization. Rey doesn’t like Ben because he’s in a wheelchair, Rey would like Ben no matter what his body was like. Differently abled people are really underrepresented sexually which is a damn shame, because a lot of hot, interesting, sexual folks are disabled. Which means people who want to see themselves or their partners represented sometimes have to turn to objectifying porn. It doesn’t do enough to normalize different kinds of bodies, in my opinion, it often instead creates a spectacle. There is an amazing photojournalism project by Olivier Fermariello that is a non sexualized look at the intimacy and sexuality of differently abled people, I will link in the end notes, as well as an article that elevates these particular voices. 
> 
> Lastly, I am disabled, but I am not a wheelchair user and I do not have a spinal cord injury. I do, however, know what it’s like to lose control of your body and be bed bound. I thought about writing a story that reflected more of my own personal struggles and found I could not stomach the idea of it. This piece lets me channel a lot of the feelings I have about disability (and myself) into something similar enough to examine the emotions but different enough that it doesn’t hurt me to write, or feel like I’m writing ~about~ myself. 
> 
> Again thank you all for your interest in this story. I’d love to update every day this week, and I’m on quite a roll so... fingers crossed!

Back when Ben could run and punch and reach his dick he did all three with semi regularity. He was big, he liked to be fast, and he liked to be strong, to be able jump and move his body, powerful, purposeful. He also liked punching things. 

Sex was— well he didn’t think about it much, to be honest. There were a few girlfriends, a few flings, a few really good videos bookmarked on his laptop, but he didn’t pay that much attention to his dick. 

Now it’s all he can think about. The closest thing to privacy he has is in the middle of the night, when Mitaka is watching TV in the living room and Ben can whisper, “Alexa, will my dick ever work?” and then spend the next full minute screaming “ALEXA DECREASE VOLUME!” 

It’s like this; if you had taken sex away from the old Ben, from Then-Ben, as Ben calls him, he might not have noticed for months. But now that he is in limbo, unsure of the _state of his equipment_ he can’t stop thinking about it.

Rey is nothing but professional when it comes to anything involving his body, which it turns out he can’t entirely avoid. She _does_ eventually have to help him onto and back off of the toilet, but Ben has never been more thankful for the little remote control bidet. She changes his catheter at least once a day. She gives him sponge baths, after his physical therapist comes over on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings because despite his limited mobility, Ben works hard, and he sweats. He does everything that’s asked of him, working on core strength, on moving his fingers, on trying to lift his arms up just the tiniest bit. 

He has a masseuse come once a week, _and_ a chiropractor, _and_ an acupuncturist, _and_ a reflexologist. Every day, at least once a day, someone comes to the apartment to work with Ben. Sometimes, his mother pops in to chat with Rey as if he’s not sitting _right there_ himself, but usually she comes over on Sundays, when Hux is there and all Ben does is watch TV. 

So when Rey says, “We’re going to see Doctor Holdo,” while laying his coat on the bed, it takes a minute to click. He hasn't left the apartment in weeks, since his last MRI. 

“Why can’t she come here?” 

Rey gives him a withering look, as if he’s selfish or spoiled and he manages to shrug without really shrugging. 

“You know you have to do another scan and the machine does not travel. Plus, she said it would be good for you to get out. Also, we can get ice cream.” 

Ben is irrationally nervous. He absolutely doesn’t want to go. 

“We can reschedule, you said we were going to watch all of the Men in Black movies today.” 

“Your appointment is at eleven, we’ll be able to watch them all when we get back.” 

“I’m not feeling up for it, I feel— really tired and sore today.” 

“Well that’s all the more reason to see your doctor,” Rey says simply, ruffling through Ben’s drawers, pulling out socks. 

“I really don’t want to go,” the vulnerability in his voice is obvious.

Rey stops shuffling around and looks at him, her expression softening. She does something she’s never done, then. She comes over and sits on his bed. Usually she sits in the chair next to the bed, but this time she fills the empty space next to him, pressing close against his side and he can _feel her,_ feel the warmth of her. He didn’t know that he could— he has to take in a deep breath. 

Rey takes his hand. He can feel that; he knows he can feel that, he does PT constantly, trying to grab and squeeze fingers and balls and plastic pipes and play dough. He can feel with his hands, but it’s so weird to feel Rey that he’s thrown off guard. 

“You haven’t left this apartment in two months,” she says gently. “It will be good to get some fresh air, to be in the real world, and then I promise, you and I can come back here and watch Men in Black. We can even skip getting ice cream, assuming we can order it in, obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Ben says, but he feels sort of winded.

Rey smiles, and then holds up clothes. “Time to get dressed.” 

It’s weird to let someone else dress him, especially when he sort of flops around, and Rey has to grunt as she supports his weight, wiggling him into a Henley and then into clean sweatpants she has to tie tighter and tighter every time. It makes him feel even worse. His legs are so much thinner now than they used to be, and Ben knows they will probably get smaller still. He’s relieved once he can’t see them anymore, uncomfortable about his body in new and excruciating form. Rey helps him into a fleece lined jean jacket and a beanie, stopping to look at him as if she’s admiring her handiwork. 

“You’re staring,” he says. 

“You look _good_.” It’s not patronizing or sugary sweet, she sounds appreciative, and Ben feels his face warm. He can’t— it isn’t— nothing he is now could ever be— 

“Lets just go,” he says, and Rey helps him into his wheelchair with as much grace as they ever manage. He doesn’t really leave his apartment but he does leave his bedroom. Sometimes to watch Rey cook, or to watch TV on the couch, or to just be wheeled back and forth while Rey talks about everything— nothing— her life. 

He knows a lot about it, now. 

She _doesn’t_ have a boyfriend, he asked that one on the second day, she _does_ have two roommates and one cat. She lives in Brooklyn, which means it takes her more than an hour on the train to get him every day, and during that time she listens to true crime podcasts. She leaves her house every day at 6:22am, gets a cup of coffee with milk and honey from the corner store, and then listens to murder stories on the train as the sun comes up. 

His doorman looks surprised to see him, calling out, “Hey! Mister Solo!” with too much enthusiasm for anyone before noon and for Ben _ever._ Rey calls him _Charlie_ and tells him not to forget to call his daughter for her birthday and Ben is forced to remember that Rey is at work, that she does so many things without him. 

It sours his mood, and things only get worse. The humiliation of being strapped into the handicap van is fresh horror, and Ben endures it as best he can while feeling useless. Their driver hits on Rey. Flirting shamelessly, talking about her fucking _legs_ of all things. 

“Can we not talk about legs, actually? It’s a really sensitive subject for me.” 

The driver looks absolutely horrified and Rey chokes down a laugh, not quite managing to pass it off as a cough and he feels marginally better. 

Until the whole business of unstrapping him, when the guy says _here’s my number if you wanna call me when you’re off work._

She takes it, pockets it. Ben hates everything. 

***

Dr. Holdo says, “You’re are showing serious improvement, Ben,” and “this is about as good as we could have hoped for at this point,” which is fucking depressing and doesn’t seem like something to smile about. “Your range of motion has increased to almost twenty percent, you can lift your arms up a full inch, and bring your fingers into a fist. That’s remarkable Ben.” 

“Is it?” Ben says, “because it feels pretty fucking pathetic.” There’s silence. Rey shifts next to him. Ben closes his eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t— I don’t like being here. I’m doing everything they tell me, I’m— I’m trying.” 

“It shows,” Dr. Holdo says. 

“Does this mean that my arms are gonna work again?” 

Dr. Holdo doesn’t answer right away, which is an answer in and of itself. Then she says, “We don’t know. I am not going to say it’s impossible, there have been instances of recovery from similar injuries, sometimes people recover 90-100 percent of their mobility. There have been cases where no mobility is regained. It’s a waiting game. I can say, with certainty, that the progress you have made so far bodes very well for you, and is consistent with what we would hope to see in someone on the path to recovery.” 

It’s not terrible news. He knows better, now, than to ask about his legs. That part of him, the part that runs— he’s never getting that back. 

***

He relents and lets Rey wheel him through midtown in search of ice cream. She is in such a good mood, seems so thrilled with what Dr. Holdo said, he can’t bring himself to be the fly in her— triple scoop, chocolate, strawberry and coffee, in a cup, with a cone on top. 

Ben gets chocolate in a cup without a cone because Rey already has to feed him the ice cream, and he doesn’t want to add crumbs into the mix. 

He’s gotten pretty used to her feeding him, they have a rhythm where he leans forward just bit and she brings the spoon to his lips, catching any ice cream that drips down on his lips. When someone starts laughing from one table over it takes him a minute to realize they’re laughing _at him_. It’s a kid, only nine or ten, which makes it hard (but not impossible) for Ben to be angry until— 

“Don’t laugh Tommy, just be thankful that’s not you, god willing. We can pray for him tonight.” 

Ben feels his stomach drop, next to him, Rey goes tense. 

“Let’s go,” Ben says, and she looks like she wants to argue for a moment, before nodding and wheeling him out of the little ice cream shop.

He doesn’t look at her, not while they wait for a car or while he gets strapped in, or back or, or when they get back to the apartment. It’s just the two of them, someone cleaned while they were gone. 

“Do you wanna watch movies in here or in your room?” 

“I wanna be alone,” Ben says coldly. 

Rey doesn’t put up a fight, she wheels him into his room, takes his jacket off, helps him into bed. She brings water to his lips which he takes without comment. 

“I’ll be outside when you need me,” she says. 

But the rest of the day passes and Ben doesn’t call her in. 

***

The next day Rey decides to make cheesecake from scratch while Ben does PT. He’s on his stomach, which is uncomfortable, and he has to use all of his core strength to keep his head up even a little bit. It’s harder than planking used to be. Dr. Phasma is like a drill sergeant, she’s relentless with him, always pushing him to do more, more. He’s thankful for it. She’s one of the only people who doesn’t treat him like he’s delicate. After he’s done working out, they do hand exercises, and then arms. Ben _has_ noticed a change, he can’t deny it. He can bend his elbow a little, he can make a fist, he could probably type or at least text which means he _could_ write. 

The thought makes something inside of him burn with a light he thought long gone. He works hard, and when Dr. Phasma leaves Rey comes in to wash him. 

He has a chair in the shower which he sits in while she runs hot water from the removable shower head and washes his body off with a soft cloth. The first few times it had been more humiliating than relaxing but now it mostly just feels good. He lets her work out the kinks his muscles, wash the sweat from his back, his arms, he doesn’t like when she touches his legs, because he can’t really feel it beyond an occasional, unpleasant tingling which is just unsettling, but mostly because he’s self conscious. She knows that now, though, so she does only what she has to. 

Afterward, she helps him into clean black sweats and a soft cotton shirt. He feels weirdly calm this morning, good from working out and the hot water and Rey’s presence. It’s peaceful, so of course he fucks it up. 

“How do you feel about assisted suicide,” he asks her while she’s brushing his hair. Her hand stills. 

“I think there are places where it is a mercy,” she says. “When you know a disease is only going to get worse, rob someone of lung function before death. When you know it saves a lot of pain without changing the outcome, when death is inevitable.”

“Death is always inevitable.” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“No, I don’t.”

She sighs, coming around to look at him. 

“This is _not_ one of those cases where I think death would be a mercy,” she says stubbornly. 

“Wouldn’t it be?” He can’t help pushing back, he thinks it’s his call and his alone. If this is too shitty, if it’s too much, it should be his choice. 

“No,” Rey says. 

“Why not? I’m in pain,” Ben says, “my outcome probably won’t change, eventually I’ll be dead and very possibly due to some co-illness, something related to my injuries.” 

“Stop it.” 

But he can’t stop now, he wants her to bend and snap, to admit that he’s not okay, not worth saving. He needs her to say it 

“It’s true.” 

“No, it isn’t,” she snaps. “As much as ninety percent of _quadriplegics_ say that life is still worth living. Most people with spinal cord injuries live fulfilling lives, Ben. They— they have hobbies and friends and they date.”

“Date!” Ben snaps, and then he actually laughs. “Don’t— don’t do that. You _know_ that’s never gonna happen for me now—“

Rey's eyes go wide. “You don’t know that!” 

“Rey.” 

“Your mind, your wit, your _everything_ is still so— you could meet someone and—“ 

He cuts her off, anger rupturing like a boil. “I don’t even know if my fucking dick works!” Rey stops talking, she’s breathing fast. It’s almost a relief to finally say it, even if the words ring out like a hammer on a coffin nail. Rey looks stymied, for once, she bites her lip.

“I— I mean listen, that’s not all there is to sex, even if it’s— not the same as before and I mean, you don’t _know_ anything yet.” 

“Because I can’t even jerk off, Rey, that’s what my quality of life looks like.” 

She’s a little pink cheeked. 

“I’m sure if you— that you could find someone to— to _test_.” 

“Stop,” Ben says, shaking his head. It’s a testament to his fondness for her that he offers her an out. “I’m— I'm starving. Can you get lunch?” Rey nods, hesitates as if she might say something else, and then disappears. Ben gets his breathing under control, he turns the tv on, puts on old Star Trek, the one with Picard, and tries to pay attention. Rey comes in a few minutes later with lunch. She feeds him bites of cheese and chicken with her fingers, instead of a fork. It’s intimate in a way he both craves and loathes. He can tell that she’s just pretending to watch Star Trek too. He shouldn’t have said anything, he should have just let a peaceful morning be a peaceful morning. Instead he had to go picking fights and telling secrets.

Rey’s thumb comes up and brushes his bottom lip, making him shiver. He looks at her. 

“You have some— uhm— food.” Her voice is breathy, her thumb still on his lips. Her eyes are dark and she looks sort of sad. “Ben,” she says carefully. “I was thinking.” 

“That’s dangerous,” Ben says, and she smiles a little, dropping her hand and looking down. 

“I was thinking that I could help you, if you want me to. Help you just— _test_ it out.” 

It takes him too long to realize she’s talking about his dick. Even once he realizes it, he doesn’t believe it, and his prolonged silence is enough to make her panic. 

“I mean, no— okay, listen I— I know that’s not professional, it wouldn’t be a professional thing or— or a regular thing,” she rambles. 

“Rey,” Ben says. “Why?” 

“Because— because _you can’t_ and that’s so unfair and if I didn’t know if my parts worked, and I had to just _not know_ for _who knows how long_ I’d be losing it too.” 

“So just— just this once?” he asks tentatively. 

Rey nods. “Just this once and then we promise not to talk about it again. I like being your nurse, and they probably won’t let me be your nurse, or _anybody’s_ nurse, if they find out but— sorry,” she bites her lip and turns her eyes up to him. “I talk too much when I’m nervous.” 

She’s got freckles dusting her nose, he’s never seen them this close. She’s _nervous._

“Okay,” he says, and Rey stands, leaving for a moment before coming back with clean hands and latex gloves— god is she going to use gloves? That sounds unpleasant— but then she’s moving the blanket back and Ben watches as she makes quick work of his catheter, sliding it out and disappearing, coming back again with her hands bare and holy shit, she is really going to touch him? 

Just the thought should be making him hard, but it isn’t, and he’s not sure if that’s a bad sign. He might not be able to get hard, he might not be able to cum. There’s a stone in his stomach. 

“It’s okay,” Rey says softly, and she’s coming over to the bed, to sit with him— pressed close. His pants are still shoved down to his thighs from before, the blankets pushed back enough to expose him. Rey’s hand moves between his legs. “If you want me to stop, or slow down, just tell me.” 

“What if I want you to go faster?” Ben says with a little quirk to his lips, and Rey laughs, shaking her head, her hand finds its way around him and she squeezes him. 

He can feel her touching him, he can feel the blood rushing between his legs, can feel his cock lengthening in twitches to the beat of his heart. 

“You’re getting hard, Ben,” Rey whispers as she pumps him slowly, “does it feel good?”

Ben swallows thickly, pants a little to catch his breath as Rey’s hand leaves him, then comes back slick and slippery and slides along him. 

“Yeah,” Ben breathes out, “yeah, it feels good.” 

It’s such a relief, to be able to get hard, to feel her warm hand so tight around him, squeezing him, his nerves alight, the slick sounds of the lube loud in his quiet bedroom. Ben whines, his head falling back. He can’t thrust against her, he can’t guide her at all with his body so he has to talk. Despite his joke earlier, when the words come out they sound serious and rough. “A little— a little faster, good— yeah, twist under the head when— ah— shit, just like that. That’s good, Rey, that’s good.” 

Ben has to bite his tongue, he wants to tell her how good it feels to fuck her fist, how he wants to see her tits, kiss her mouth. He absolutely can’t say any of that, so he grunts and makes himself focus on her, the way she’s looking at his cock, cheeks pink and eyes bright. It’s been so long since he was touched, so long since he came at all— he won’t last long which is good, in this case. Too much and he’ll start talking more. 

He feels muscles he can’t control begin to twitch, the heat of an orgasm building low in his belly and spreading out. It’s familiar, it’s perfect. 

“Rey,” he grunts, “I’m gonna—“

She doesn’t move away from him, just squeezes a little tighter, twists a little harder, her free hand coming down to cup his balls and he’s done for. 

He gasps and trembles when he cums, thick, white jizz squirts from his cockhead and oozes down Rey’s hand, squishing between her fingers and onto his thighs . He wants to tell her to _lick it up_ . He absolutely _does not._

“Well,” Rey says, letting her fingernails drag lazily up his sensitive shaft once final time, making him gasp a little. “It is my professional, medical opinion that your dick works _just_ fine.” 

The relief Ben feels is intense, he actually has tears in his eyes because— 

“I really wasn’t sure,” he admits, blinking fast. “Thank you, Rey, thank you.” 

She’s dark eyed and her lips are wet and red and he wants to kiss her, to beg her to let him return the favor but what could he even do for her?

_You could let her ride your face, or your cock_ , his brain supplies, totally unhelpfully. 

Rey smiles, and then she gets up and disappears. She comes back with a warm washcloth, gloves, a new catheter. It’s business as usual as she cleans him up, tucks him away and smiles. 

“ _Oh my god_ I almost forgot,” she says, grinning even wider. “I made cheesecake!” 

Overall, it’s the best day Ben has had in a long time. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Olivier Fermariello’s [photography](https://www.lensculture.com/olivier-fermariello?modal=project-4952)
> 
> An informative article where people with disabilities speak about sex and how they are perceived sexually, a lot of good info [here](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/386866/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count went up by one, might bump it one more but that’s if I split the next chapter if it gets too long! Thank you guys for all the love on this story :)

One of Ben’s favorite fantasies is that jerking him off becomes part of Rey’s daily routine, like dressing him and feeding him. It’s not his _favorite_ fantasy, which involves Rey jerking him off because she loves him, but it is more realistic and therefore just as fun to think about. 

Much to his chagrin, jerking him off does not become part of Rey’s daily routine. They don’t talk about it, and Ben is not so socially inept that he can’t understand it for what it is. A favor, and one he is truly grateful for. 

She doesn’t touch his dick anymore, but she touches _him_ more as time goes on. 

Her hand is almost always in his, making him squeeze her, helping him do his exercises at all hours of the day. She touches his face, too. She says she’s cleaning him up, but sometimes she does it when he hasn’t eaten anything and Ben is positive that despite everything, he doesn’t drool. She helps him shave, which always makes his heart beat fast, it’s a weird sort of trust. She touches his ears, because it makes him jump and little and she thinks that’s funny. 

She doesn’t touch his legs unless she has to, but she has to every day, making sure his skin doesn’t tear, that he doesn’t get sores. He endures it as best he can, which is to say he doesn’t curse at her, a miracle if you ask him. 

***

About two months after _the_ _favor,_ Rey pulls out a Nintendo Switch. 

“You want me to watch you play video games? Aren’t you getting paid for this?” 

Rey snorts and rolls her eyes. 

“I’m gonna watch _you_ play video games.” 

“Oh?” 

“Yes, look.” Rey brings him two little controllers, slipping one into each hand. “You can hold them individually, and they’re small, and you’re getting pretty good with your fingers.” 

Ben raises an eyebrow suggestively and Rey laughs again, swatting him gently. He loves making her laugh, can’t believe how easy it is. 

“I was never a big video game person.” 

“ _Perfect_ , everyone sucks when they start playing video games so that might work in your favor. You won’t miss being good.” 

She opens up a game that starts with a whole video intro about some elf kid named Link and a hundred years sleep, and then she lets Ben practice walking around. He doesn’t think he’s any worse at it then he would have been six months ago, but he is by no means _good._ It makes Rey laugh. 

“Okay, you might be some kind of chess-god but you suck at this.” 

Ben laughs, but he keeps at it, and after a little while he is really and truly playing video games. It’s fun. 

“Alexa, order a Nintendo switch,” he says sometime that afternoon, and Rey tells him that he can keep hers until his arrives. 

The more he plays, the more he realizes his hands are _useful_ for something, and so more he thinks about writing. 

Ben used to write all the time, when he was younger, as an outlet and for fun. He’d come up with massive D&D campaigns for his friends. He would write horror stories about reanimated corpses. He would write about girls he thought were hot and how their big boobs probably stood straight up on their own and felt like warm bags of jello— seriously, he’d been fourteen when he wrote that line— it still haunts him. 

As an adult he worked in publishing, where he never wrote stories for himself and instead doctored other peoples. 

If he can fight monsters off with a sword, he figures can type. 

***

When Rey leaves that night, he asks Mitaka to set him up with his laptop. He helps Ben get it settled on his lap tray, and then he sits down in Rey’s chair. Ben lets him stay, unsure of whether he can keep the entire computer from slipping away from him, but it doesn’t. The computer stays put, and Ben’s hands are indeed capable of typing at this point. 

He starts to write. 

***

Time passes differently. He gets more into video games than he would have I expected, and after a few weeks he has the dexterity to hold the switch in his lap while he plays instead of each individual controller in his hand. He can shift the console around even though he can’t lift it. It’s easy now to tilt and twist it when he shoots off arrows in _Breath of the Wild_. He plays racing games and shooting games and epic story games. He totally gets the hype, it’s as much of an escape as reading is. 

It makes a huge difference. He isn’t stuck inside of his mind, even if he is still stuck inside of his body. 

He writes every day. He journals, knowing that even if he can’t admit it out loud, he wants to remember everything that’s happening to him now. He writes stories, retellings of Greek Myths and new Myths about healing goddesses and the men they heal, and then love, and then, sometimes, fuck as well. 

His dick _works_ , but it doesn’t work the same. He isn’t able to get hard on his own, he can’t think himself into an erection which is super weird. He can _want_ just as much as ever, but his body doesn’t react the same. So even when he writes private, filthy things down he just ends up making his heart race and his skin crawl. It’s frustrating as hell, so he stops doing that after about a week. 

At least he can do his own research now, which is a lot less embarrassing than yelling at Alexa. Ben is relieved that his dick works at all, but the more he reads the more discouraged he becomes. He thought he shot quickly with Rey because of how long it had been, but now he worries that’s the best his body can do. The fact that he hasn’t had any wet dreams, hasn’t cum at all before or after the single handjob he’s gotten, makes him nervous that he won’t be able to ejaculate regularly. His dick got hard, but maybe it wasn’t as hard as it used to be, when he thinks about it, and he wonders if it will be inadequate. He wants to get hard again to check, but he can’t. He knows he’s always been a bit big, but that won’t mean much if he can’t _use_ it— and truly, without the ability to move his hips, _his_ _legs_ , he knows he cant _fuck_ the way he wants to anyway. 

It’s frustrating and depressing. Everything online tells him that the world is full of misconceptions about disability and sex, but it also tells him that people with physical disabilities have a lot more trouble finding partners. Ben has never been an easy partner, even when he was strong and could fuck fast and do all of the heavy lifting and shelf installing. Ben never considered himself _hot_ and to make up for it he got _big_ and _strong_ and _intimidating_ and now that’s gone. If he had been out with Rey before his accident, no one would have dared to comment on her body while he was with her. 

But he doesn't scare anyone anymore, and that absolutely terrifies him. 

All of this means isn't sure what he has to offer anyone, the amount of attention and energy that he requires now outweighs anything he could possibly give to another person. He never really felt like he was someone who _needed_ a partner, but he also never felt like he _needed_ to be taken care of. This new desire for companionship, the new appreciation he has for it now that he can’t have it— it’s hell. 

Especially since he’s pretty sure he’s absolutely, head over heels in love with Rey. 

***

It’s snowing. Rey is making rice pudding which Ben mentions sounds _disgusting_ and Rey insists is _delicious_ . He’s in his chair, in the kitchen alongside her as she stirs a pot. It smells good, like cinnamon and nutmeg and sugar— not what he was expecting _rice pudding_ to smell like. 

Both of their phones go off at the same time, which makes them look at one another with twin expressions of curiosity. 

“Siri read my notifications,” Ben says as Rey picks up her phone. 

“Snow,” she says just as Siri says _one new notification, two forty six pm, severe weather warning for Kings county—“_

“Snow,” Ben repeats, and then Rey wheels him into the living room, which has a whole wall of windows. 

It’s been snowing all day, but it’s _really_ snowing now. 

“You should go,” Ben says, “if you stay you’re going to get stuck here.” 

“And ruin my pudding? I don’t think so, you just don’t wanna try it.” 

Ben can’t help his smirk, but then he schools his face. 

“Seriously, Rey. If you don’t go now who knows when you’ll get out of here.” 

“I can’t do that and you know it, even if I knew Mitaka was on his way, which I doubt he is at this time, I couldn’t do it.” 

“Rey— you’re gonna get stuck here.”

She shrugs, as if to say _whatever._ Ben opens his mouth to argue again. 

“I could call your mom,” Rey says, with a dangerous glint in her eye.

Ben stops talking and it takes him a minute to start up again. 

“That— would be best, I guess. I don’t want you to— I don’t want to ruin your weekend or—“ 

Rey laughs. 

“Ben I am _not_ leaving you at the mercy of your mother for who knows how long. Not unless you _really_ piss me off, so you better at least fake liking this pudding.” 

“Rey,” he says again, but she walks over to him with a spoon, blowing on it gently and bringing it to his lips and he takes the pudding. It’s sweet, and delicious, it takes like a hot, liquid churro, which is to say, delightful. 

He moans a little bit around the mouthful, and Rey uses her bare thumb to wipe the side of his mouth. 

“I’m texting your mom, the agency, and Mitaka right now, telling them I’m staying until the storm passes and to keep everyone else out of the storm. It just makes sense.” Looking at him, she adds, “I really don’t mind.” 

“Oh please,” Ben says, anger rising. “Don’t lie to me. I know I’d be pissed off if I got stuck working overtime instead of hanging with my friends or— or whatever you do on weekends.” 

“You are my friend,” her face is serious, and maybe a little shy, like she expects him to scoff at her. He doesn’t, and so keeps talking. “It might be fun,” she says “to spend some time together and just— you know. I mean your logic works when your job is an office with a boss who screams at you and paperwork and stuff, but it doesn’t really work when your job is hanging out with someone fun and playing video games and watching movies and baking, so, you know,” she shrugs, and then laughs a little bit. “Honestly I have more fun here, all I’m missing is doing laundry and cleaning my bathroom.” 

_Friend._ They are friends, aren’t they? Ben has had a handful of nurses now in the last few months, he has two others that he sees for between twenty and fifty hours a week and yet— Rey is different. 

“The pudding is delicious,” Ben says, because he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, he feels emotionally unmoored. Rey’s face lights up. 

  
  


***

Rey brings out a backup generator he definitely didn’t used to own. 

“Just in case,” she says, “I know you don’t need a ventilator or anything but it’s standard to have some backup if there’s hospital equipment involved and plus, we need to charge our phones charged just in case.” 

She plugs both phones in, and his laptop, both Switch consoles. She cooks the chicken that’s in the fridge, just to be safe. She gets extra blankets out. Ben is just watching her, feeling moved in a way that feels undeserved. 

_This is her job,_ he reminds himself, _she’s good at it, this isn’t about you, it’s about her work ethic._

But he feels so taken care of that he can hardly stand it. 

In the end they don’t lose power. She feeds him chicken for dinner and rice pudding for dessert, using his spoon to take bites for herself, unselfconscious about sharing with him in a world where so many people go out of their way to _not_ touch him. She doesn’t think he’s gross, even when she’s feeding him and he has food on his face, she licks his spoon. It does things to him that he doesn’t have words for. 

The sun sets, turning the outside world from white to gray to black. All the while, snow piles up.

“Do you wanna shower or anything?” he asks her, “I have clothes you can wear too, whatever you need.” 

“Actually a shower sounds wonderful,” she says, stretching her back. 

“Awesome, why don't you go get naked and sit in the chair and I’ll get the sponge.” 

Rey snorts, her eyes crinkling and her teeth showing as she laughs. She stands to leave, pauses to look back at him once more, and then shakes her head, heading into his bathroom. He hears the water running a minute later. 

He’s greedy for more time with her, irrationally hopes the storm never stops, that snow piles all the way up the 27th floor where they are, blankets the entire city in a massive natural disaster. 

It seems unlikely, even with all the global warming shit. 

Ben uses the remote to adjust his bed, sitting up more and working on squeezing his hands into fists, and then on lifting his arms up. He’s gotten good at squeezing, but his range of motion is still so limited when it comes to his arms. If the remote slips from his grasp to rest even a few inches away, he can’t get it back. 

The water cuts off and a minute later Rey comes back in. Her body is wrapped in one of his towels, her hair twisted up into another. 

“All good?” she asks him, coming over to fluff his pillow which is just _absolutely_ unnecessary while she’s still wet and shiny from the shower. She takes clothes from his drawer without comment and smiles as she slips back into the bathroom to change. 

“You know,” Ben calls out to the closed door. “You see me naked all the time, don’t you think we’re past modesty?” 

She comes back out a second later in a pair of his sweats and one of his tee shirts. They’re both big on her, which gratifies him in a completely new way. 

“Oh I think it’s good to leave _some_ things to the imagination, don’t you?” 

She brushes her wet hair out until it’s only damp. She’s not wearing a bra, but the shirt she picked is black and he can’t see her nipples through it. 

“Okay, what do you wanna watch?” 

“You pick,” Ben says, because he’s too busy trying to imagine what color Rey’s nipples are to think straight. 

“Can we watch Harry Potter? It’s my favorite for snowy days.” 

“I’ve actually never seen those,” Ben admits sheepishly. 

Rey's eyes go wide as stars. He’s never seen that look on her face, it’s low key scary.

“Oh my god, I know exactly how we’re going to spend the next twenty four hours.” 

***

They make it through three movies before Rey falls asleep. 

Before that, tells her, “This is the most dangerous school on the planet, how are they not getting sued constantly?” And, “Why did they even have a teacher there to teach them to fly if all she was gonna do is watch them fall?” And then later, “They kept the school open even with kids getting petrified? And parents just accepted that?” And finally, “Honestly I Snape has a point, I wouldn’t want a werewolf teaching my kids either if he was gonna randomly wolf out like that.” 

When Rey doesn’t answer Ben turns his head. She’s asleep, curled up against him on her side, in his clothes, in his bed, smelling like his body wash. Her hand is on her thigh— out of reach. 

She is so close and she is so far away. 

It’s all he can think about as he watches the credits roll, and then the screen goes dark. He’ll have to lift up a few inches and then extend his elbow, flex his fingers enough to wiggle his hand under hers and then manually close his fingers back around her— if he were to hold her hand. 

Ben reaches for her. It doesn’t happen, he can get the lift but not the extension, and then the extension but not the lift, and it takes him several, long, _grueling_ minutes trying not to pant or wake her up and hoping that she doesn’t just _shift_ a little in her sleep, turn away from him. It would be effortless for her. 

Ben has a faint sheen of sweat on his face and neck when he finally manages to both lift his entire arm a few inches and extend his elbow and aim true, grabbing Rey's hand, a little too tight. 

Her eyes open in the darkness and she looks up at him. The movie has ended, it’s quiet and dark, but the snow outside makes it brighter than night usually is, and so he can see her clearly. 

Her eyes move from his face to their hands, tangled together on her thigh, just below the curve of her hip bone. 

“Ben?” she says, voice rough with sleep, and then her hand tightens around his, lacing their fingers. He’s a little out of breath, and it only gets worse when she brings their hands, still locked together, up between their bodies. She kisses his knuckles, he shivers against her. 

He closes his eyes, terrified suddenly, and when he opens them again, she’s asleep, breathing slow, her mouth resting gently against his fingers where she has snuggled against their hands and _he can feel her, he can feel her, he can feel her._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I was bed bound and couldn’t even sit up getting a switch saved my life no lie, the accessibility aspect is huge and really underrated imo. As always thanks for reading! I love all your comments so much 🥰🥰❤️❤️


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter and mostly angst tbh :’)

Despite Ben’s insistence that it was just sheer force of will that made his arm move, a total fluke, it turns out to be the first _real_ milestone that he clears and feels good about. 

He can move his arm, both of them, after a few weeks. He can lift, and he can bend, and when he starts doing weight training he takes to it like it’s air and he’s been suffocating. It feels _so_ good to work out in a way that he knows will make him bigger, able to _do_ things for himself. 

Three months in, he’s feeding himself. It’s just more motivation to keep pushing. 

He is ruthless. Rey reads to him during the day or she plays video games or puts on podcasts and bakes and Ben works his arms until he’s sore.

“You’re a good athlete Ben,” Phasma tells him. “You know that the way to be the best isn’t to do everything at once. It’s to master each step along the way. You’re only hurting yourself here.” 

She tells him to limit weights to an hour a day, but Ben can _feel_ himself getting stronger, and he can’t stop. Now he can use his arms and grip the rail of his bed to his up, instead of using the remote. It means his back hurts less, and his skin isn’t as irritated on his shoulders. 

His legs are a different story. God he hates them. They’re small, weak, the skin is so thin in places because he’s always sitting. Rey moves him every two hours, lifting his legs, putting special cream on. She tells him the stronger he gets the better it will get, and he kind of believes her. He thinks he may be able to eventually at least lift himself up enough to shift his weight. 

Just that would make a huge difference. 

His arms start to get real muscle back, he’s not ripped like he used to be but he’s not scrawny, he’s corded and lean. 

It does something to his mind, too, snaps something into place that’s been missing, a single cord still tied to Then-Ben which both makes him feel more like himself and also appalled at what he is now. But it reminds him that he’s never backed down from a physical challenge, so as much as he wants to listen to Phasma, he can’t help the fact that he wants to move as much as possible. And besides, it’s _working_. 

Three months into weight training and he changes his own catheter. He cries afterward, which honestly— valid. Even Hux looks a little misty eyed. Although maybe that’s just because he won’t have to touch Ben’s dick anymore. When he tells Rey on Monday, she cries too, throwing her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek. 

He doesn’t miss Rey feeding him. Sometimes he misses the touch of her fingers on his face. But really, she still touches him— a lot. She helps him shave still, and even without that she's always brushing his hair out of his face. _Habit,_ she says with a grin, but sometimes Ben wonders if that’s all it is. Rey likes touching him, he can tell. Maybe she’s just a touchy person, probably, but… the way she looks at him, sometimes, it’s like she _sees_ him. It’s a lot. 

Ben is definitely at least a _little_ bit in love with Rey, but he doesn’t want to be with Rey. Not like _this_ , not _now_. He can’t. What kind of a relationship requires that one person to do everything for the other? Even if she did want him now, by some miracle, how the hell could he ever keep her? It would be asking her to sign onto a lifetime of commitments and responsibility that she makes good money doing _professionally_. Who would want to take that home and do it for free? Wouldn’t it actually be cruel of him to ask her for that? 

_But you're getting better._

It’s the one voice in his head he’s worked the hardest to shut up since the accident. Hope. 

***

Ben keeps pushing himself, being able to see physical changes over a few months, knowing that his strategy to push his own limits is paying off, it urges him forward. 

He gets cocky. Or sentimental. Or both. It’s just that he hasn’t been able to do _anything_ in over a year and there’s a lot of little, tiny things he’s wanted to do and just _couldn’t,_ so he asks Hux to get him down some boxes so he can go through them. 

Ben’s not sure if he wants to destroy the evidence of his past life or immortalize it. He makes a promise to himself that he won’t act either way today, and begins to sort through his stuff. 

It’s a lot of photos, him as a kid on Long Island, sunburnt on the beach. Awkward school photos and birthday pictures with acne and dad looking tall and god— _so_ young. 

Ben hasn’t seen his father's face in a long time, he died five years ago, and Ben hasn’t seen much of anything besides the inside of his apartment and the kingdom of Hyrule for the last year. 

His graduation cap is in here, yearbooks. Pictures with old girlfriends. One of him on a hike, looking massive and strong. Pictures taken after runs, or in the pool, outside— inaccessible mountains, inaccessible stores, inaccessible plane rides away. 

He kind of wants to destroy it all. But then he sees something, all wrapped up, and he doesn’t. He forgot he had this, to be honest, it shouldn’t be his yet— 

At first glance, it’s just an old lightbulb, but when you look inside tiny wires have been shaped into flowers, it’s masterful, and, elaborate, and handmade. His grandfather made it for his grandmother, and she had given it to his mother and his mother had given it to him. 

_“You’ll give it to someone too, eventually, just like he did. You’re a lot like him, deep down.”_ His mother's words echo so clearly in his mind. He holds the bulb up to look at it closer and he thinks of Rey, of giving her this precious and delicate thing and thinks _maybe._

And then his hand cramps, and his muscles all start to spasm and twitch along his bicep and triceps and his fingers— 

The glass bulb slips from his hand in an instant and shatters. The second it bursts, Ben feels the pain. 

***

Ben hates the fucking hospital. 

He’s been poked and prodded non stop for the last seven hours. The pain has stopped because they gave him something strong but his muscles won’t stop jumping and twitching. 

“We have to rule out neurological possibilities, something that could be long term.” Doctor Holdo came in just to see him, his mother has reminded him five times already, so he doesn’t curse at her. 

He’s a little too defeated to do anything but let the medication wash over him and wait. 

***

When he wakes up, there is no cramping, or twitching, or— as far as he can tell, after he blinks sleep away— pain medication.

“Good news,” his mom says, “it’s nothing serious. A combination of dehydration and a tricky pinched nerve. You’ve been working too hard, Ben,” and then she adds, “You did this to yourself,” in an unbearable tone.

Of course he did. 

He thinks about the lightbulb but doesn’t tell her. 

“Don’t look so grumpy, kid, it’s gonna be fine. They’ve got you on fluids now, pumping you full of potassium and crap, and Amilyn said once you see the chiropractor you’ll feel much better, he’s just going to have to readjust accordingly as your training progresses.” 

Ben, weirdly, doesn’t feel any relief. He cannot figure out why. He _is_ relieved it isn’t something serious, constant, painful— but he’s also feeling humbled in a weird way, as if the universe itself sent him a sign at the very first moment he thought _maybe..._

“They wanna keep you here another night and if you’re clear in 24 hours you can go home.” Leia smiles, and Ben honestly tries to return it. After a while, he fakes sleep, and then he really does sleep. 

His dreams smell like latex and antibacterial soap and halogen yellow lights. 

***

Ben can’t shake his bad mood. Rey meets them at the hospital that morning for discharge and she is chattering away happily as she wheels him into the lobby and then into the elevator and then into his apartment. 

The house has been cleaned, because of course it has, and the glass is gone. It must have looked like total garbage. 

It wasn’t garbage. 

Ben is tired, bone tired, brain tired, body tired. Rey lets him nap away most of the day, but she wakes him up to make him eat and change his catheter. 

“I can do that, you know I can do that now,” he says stubbornly. 

“Doctor said not until you're clear of all muscle spasms for three days. It’s sensitive equipment,” she winks. “Not where you wanna miss mark.” 

He fucking hates this. He _just_ got this freedom back. He still has to use the damn thing, but being able to change it out himself has made a _huge_ difference and to now be right back where he was before— he wants to punch something, realizes he probably could, and then doesn’t want to anymore. 

He just lets Rey do whatever she does, trying his best to be somewhere else. When she’s done and cleaned up, she gets into bed next to him, pulls her knees up to her chin. 

“Ben,” she says softly, and he turns to her. “I know setbacks are rough, but you’ve made _insane_ progress in eighteen months. You have blown all of us away, and I am so proud of you.” 

His throat feels tight. 

“You work hard, _so hard_ , and it _is_ paying off. Look at what you can do, look ahead at what you will be able to do in another year, in two, in five.” 

He doesn’t really know what to say. She’s close to him, and then she’s touching him. Her hands are on his arm. 

“You’re getting so strong, Ben,” her voice is serious as she looks down at his arm, and then she looks at his face and her expression brightens, gently teasing. “You’re going to have all the ladies swooning over your biceps if you keep it up.” 

“That’s not gonna happen,” Ben snaps. 

“Oh, we’ll see,” her tone is so light, so casual. “But I’m almost never wrong about these things, once the new normal settles in, I’m sure you’ll be able to date—“ 

“Stop.” 

He doesn’t want pity, he doesn’t need some vague hope of something, someday, with someone else, and he doesn’t want _this_ , like _this_ , either. 

Rey goes silent, her hands move back to her own lap, the warmth on his skin disappears. It’s awkward and too quiet. Then Rey, cheerful as ever, says, “I brought everything I need make tiramisu,” with a big smile, and she gets up and walks away from Ben. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of wanted to give up writing this yesterday because, damn it is emotional for me, but your comments literally make all the difference in the world. I love hearing your stories and thoughts and favorite parts. It makes me wanna tell this story. Thank you guys so much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> floof

Ben knows quite a bit about Rey’s life. Her roommates' names are Rose and Finn. Twice, Rey has even invited Ben to come out with the three of them, but the idea of being there while she takes care of him— and while her friends look on with pity— he can’t stomach it. He knows her parents died when she was ten and that she spent six years in foster care before her grandfather turned up out of the blue and took her in until she turned eighteen. She doesn’t talk about any of them much, and she doesn’t go home for holidays. 

She likes baking, Harry Potter, video games, cursing, and making him laugh. She is unbearably radiant. 

So when he sees her in a real, truly bad mood— it’s equal parts alarming and refreshing. 

No one should be happy  _ all _ the time, Ben firmly believes this, but also seeing Rey unhappy makes him unhappy. 

She is baking, but every stir of the bowl, every egg cracked, every inch of dough kneaded is laced with discontent. 

“You good?” he asks, and she gives him a tight smile. “You sure?” he presses, a little fascinated.

“Never better,” she snaps. 

Ben wheels himself around the island to watch Rey. The TV is on in the background and the AC is blasting, but it’s still warm with the oven preheating and Rey is kneading the dough  _ really  _ hard, and Ben knows  _ just  _ how strong those hands are. 

“This isn’t— fucking— _ working _ “ she digs back into the dough, double cheeks the recipe on her phone, and then her face gets redder, her eyes shine, and in an instant she swipes her hand along the counter and sends the ceramic bowl, the dough, a bag of flour, a bag of sugar, and two eggs crashing to the floor. Immediately, her eyes widen in horror as she looks down at the mess and then at Ben. 

Ben, for his part, is pretty sure that if his body was capable of popping boners, he would have one. But then he sees how badly she’s trembling, and remembers how totally out of character this outburst is, and he’s more worried than anything. 

“Fuck,” she says, “ _ fuck _ , I’m sorry— I’m  _ so _ sorry, I’ll clean it now,” her hands are shaking as she tries to get paper towels down but they get stuck and she starts to cry. Ben can’t take it.

“Rey, stop.” She does, bracing her hands on the counter and not looking at him. “Come here.” 

“I have to— there’s glass—“ 

“Well  _ I’m _ not gonna step in it, so I’m not that worried.” 

Rey snorts out a watery laugh and then turns to Ben. She’s crying silently. 

“ _Come_ _here_ ,” he says again, pushing his chair a little closer to her and holding his hand out. She looks at it for a second, and then she takes it. 

Ben tugs her closer to him and she folds herself onto his lap, pressing her nose into his neck. Her face is wet, and he realizes he doesn’t even care it’s boogers, even though it’s probably just tears. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” His voice is low and right against her ear, his hands rub up and down her back as he holds her. 

“Not yet,” she squeaks, and Ben smiles, because she can’t see it, and because _god_ it feels good to hold Rey, to have her curled up in his arms, to be able to comfort her with his body, with his hands. He can feel her slowly calming, shaking a little less, breathing a little slower. One of her hands finds his and holds tight, one touches his neck, holding onto him, pulling him down just the right amount so she can hide her face in the space between his throat and his shoulder. 

Ben hasn’t held anyone in a  _ really _ long time. 

“I’m sorry about the bowl,” she says after a little while, still tucked against him. Ben laughs a little, her hand is on his chest as it rises and falls. 

“Rey, I don’t give a shit about the bowl. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve— broken things, like that. I get it.” 

He does, he gets it, and he knows that Rey knows. 

“It was still really unprofessional of me.” 

“Well, it wasn’t the  _ most _ unprofessional thing you’ve done,” Ben says suggestively and Rey snorts against him, sits up a bit to look at him and she’s smiling. Then she stops. 

“My grandfather is a mean man,” she says slowly. “I don’t— I don’t see him anymore but he found my number, somehow, and he called me and I didn’t know who it was so I answered and just—  _ his voice,”  _ she shivers a little. “It just threw my whole day off and I thought baking would help but I fucked up my brioche—“ her voice breaks on the last word. 

Ben's hands rub slow, steady circles over her back, and he waits. Eventually, Rey starts to talk again. 

She tells him about her parents, and how good they were, and how much she misses them. She tells him about her grandfather, and how everything good in her life was taken away first after her parents died, and then again when she had to leave her foster mom’s house at sixteen. 

She tells him secrets, and he listens, relishing in the feeling of her body against his and knowledge that she trusts him, that she’s giving him a chance to make her feel better. He wants to make her feel better. 

“Listen,” he says eventually, knowing that saying the words means she will have to  _ get up  _ from his lap and how terrible is that? He says them anyway. “I’m a shit baker, but I’m a decent cook. Let me make you something, for once.” 

Rey perks up. “Really?” 

Ben nods. He hasn’t cooked at all since before his accident, but his apartment is accessible, his mother made sure of that. The island is low, and Ben is tall enough to reach the stove and Rey can help him with the rest. 

“Yeah,” he says, wheeling them around— there’s still a mess on the floor and Rey sighs dramatically. 

“Okay, you cook— I’ll clean.” 

She doesn’t get up right away though, and Ben wonders if she likes being held as much as he likes holding her. After a moment, she pushes herself off his lap with a sigh, and goes to find a broom. 

***

The kitchen is stocked, and Ben decides to go for something easy, so he’s making eggplant Parmesan. Rey, finished with the mess on the floor, takes things down from cabinets from him, stirs when he tells her to, tastes  _ everything  _ as they go along, putting her fingers right into the sauce and then licking them. 

Ben loves it. It feels good to cook, it feels good to cook with  _ Rey _ . He is right in the middle of wishing that she didn’t have to leave in two hours when she says, “Mitaka isn’t coming, I’m gonna cover him.” 

Ben pauses, turning to her. “Really?” 

“Yeah, so I’ll stay,” she smiles down at him, shrugging her shoulders and looking back at her phone. 

“Good thing you can cover him,” Ben says carefully. Rey bites her lip and then meets her eyes. 

“I really don’t wanna be alone tonight.”

It’s a confession, Ben should just take it. Of course, he doesn’t. 

“What about your roommates?” 

Rey shrugs. 

“I still feel alone— even when I’m with them.”

_ But not when I’m with you. _

She doesn’t say it, but the words hang between them. Heavy. Implicit. Alive. 

“Well,” he says after a minute, “good, because I need someone with your appetite if we have any hope of eating all of this. Mitaka is a mouse.” 

Rey smiles up to her eyes. 

  
  


***

They eat dinner. Rey makes obscene sounds with every bite, insisting that she’s never had anything this good in her life. 

Ben’s has her cookies so he knows it’s bullshit but he still preens a little bit. After, she washes the dishes and he dries them. The windows are open. It’s warm and breezy— peaceful, and she looks happy now, and Ben knows  _ he did that _ , he made her happy. He  _ held _ her in his  _ arms _ . That alone is sort of blowing his mind. 

He feels more whole than he has in a long time. 

After, Ben showers alone, and he can hear Rey moving around in his bedroom. When he comes out, wearing only loose pants for dignity sake, as if it even matters now, Rey is in a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top that is very much  _ not  _ his. 

“Showers yours if you want it,” he says, but she shakes her head. 

Ben wheels himself to the other side of the bed. It’s level with his chair, and he’s gotten good at getting in unassisted. He uses his arms to position his legs, and then bears weight on his arms again, leaning forward and shifting his weight onto the bed. He has to bring his legs up one at a time, but he can do it— on his own— and it is  _ everything  _ to him. 

Rey is smiling as he settles himself next to her, she runs her fingers down his spine and then adjusts his legs. 

“I’m fine,” he says, but he doesn’t even mind her fretting over him anymore, not now that he knows he can do it,  _ and _ when he kind of misses her hands on him. 

“I know,” she says, “just nurse habits.” 

“Mhm,” Ben says slyly, an eyebrow arching and Rey makes a little huffing sound but it’s self conscious and adorable and— 

This would be so easy, if everything was different. Ben lets his mind wander off to his favorite fantasy, the one where his legs work and he meets Rey some other way and they do things together like running and fucking and eating. 

But things aren’t different, and Ben should try to remember that— he should  _ try _ . 

Rey puts on  _ Men In Black  _ and leans into him, a hand on his chest. He lets his fingers trail down her arm as they watch, and when his back cramps— he lifts himself up and adjusts, settles back down against her, and takes her hand in his. 

It isn’t what he wants, it isn’t what it could have been, but right in that moment, with Rey asleep next to him, full of food he made her and wearing his clothes well— Ben thinks that it’s  _ almost _ enough. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the way you love guys this story, so, so much. Thank you all endlessly. I upped the chapter count again!! But we have only two more meaty ones before the epilogue, which will be from Rey’s POV 👀 lmk what you think <3


	6. Chapter 6

Ben wakes up next to Rey. It’s warm already, even though it’s early. Warmer because of the body next to him, not that he’s complaining. Her hair is loose around her head and her face is buried against his ribs, his arm is around her. Now that they work, they find her the night and pull her close. 

Rey stirs, wiggling against him and then blinking up at him owlishly. 

“Morning,” she says, smiling wide. 

Ben wants to kiss her. 

“Morning,” he says instead, and then she’s untangling from him lazily and stretching like a cat. She reaches over his body for her phone, and then her smile fades. 

“What’s that look?” 

“Oh no, nothing, it’s fine. Your mom is coming over later.” 

Ben has managed to keep Rey and Leia fairly separate. Ben spends every other sunday with his mother, and it’s always fucking awful. She is so different with him now, a more glaring reminder of what he was  _ before _ and how far he’s fallen than even his own wheelchair. 

“Why?” 

“I don’t know, but I can’t exactly tell her no.” 

“Yes you can, tell her I’m sick,” Ben uses the handrail on the bed to pull himself to sitting. “Or I will,” he reaches for his own phone, thumbs flying. 

_ Ben: today’s not good  _

_ Leia: Ben, it is important, I am coming over at 3:00, no arguments. Xoxo mom  _

“Fuck.”

Irrationally, he wants to ask Rey to leave. He can’t, even if it wouldn’t make him look insane, he’s still technically supposed to have a nurse. Right? Is that still true? He doesn’t think he needs one all the time… 

“It will be fine,” Rey says, jumping out of bed. “I’m gonna shower, don’t stress yourself out.” 

Ben doesn’t answer her as she bounds off to his shower. He has a bad feeling about this. 

***

Leia comes over early, because of course she does. She brings groceries, and flowers, and some other things for Ben like laxatives,  _ to help with that awful constipation,  _ and preparation H,  _ your father used to go through this like it was toothpaste, but you’ve got him beat _ , and she doesn’t even pretend to offer Ben privacy. Why would she? Rey is his  _ nurse _ , surely she doesn’t give a shit about his constipation woes or the fact that he has hemorrhoids from sitting all fucking day. It’s not even that he’s humiliated by these things exactly, it’s that he isn’t used to being seen as just a  _ patient  _ and not a  _ person  _ around Rey. 

It’s awful. 

He realizes both how much more independence he has than his mother thinks, and also how it’s still just…  _ not enough.  _

“Well you know,” Leia says to Rey, clutching a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. They’ve eaten what is either a very late lunch or a very early dinner, Ben isn’t sure. He wheeled himself away under the guise of changing his catheter, eager for a few minutes of peace. He hears his mother's voice as he’s coming back into the open space that houses the kitchen, living room and dining area. “When Ben was a kid he did  _ not stop moving, _ I mean when I tell you we couldn’t get this kid to sit down, Rey, you have no idea. Just seeing him like this now,” she trails off, emotional, “it kills me. It’s honestly the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. It's just so  _ unfair _ , such a  _ tragedy _ . He used to have so much going for him.”

“Well I don’t think—“ Rey starts to say, but Ben wheels himself in loudly and Leia looks up with a forced smile. 

“All good?” Leia says, “you’re sure you don’t need any help? That’s what Rey is for you, know.” 

“I’m fine, mom.” 

“Okay well,” Leia turns her eyes back to Rey. “I was  _ just _ about to tell Rey I know the perfect man for her.” 

Ben feels his face go hot and then cold in one swift motion. Rey’s eyes narrow, her head tilting slightly as she looks at Leia— stunned into silence. 

_ She woke up in my bed.  _

“His name is Poe, he works for me—“ 

“Poe,” Ben forces the words out. “Poe Dameron? That guy is a fucking tool.” 

“Ben,” Leia says, clucking at him. “Don’t listen to him Rey. You guys would be great, he’s handsome and charming, very athletic, said he’s going to Machu Picchu next spring, he got a special permit to climb it. I’ve told him all about you.” 

Ben has so many feelings at once he actually feels dizzy. 

“I need to sit down,” he says. His mother looks at him, worried and a little horrified, Rey smiles into her hand,  _ her _ look of terror has faded at least, transferred to the woman next to her. 

“Thank you,” Rey says to Leia, “but I am not interested.” 

“Oh but you must,” Leia pushes, turning away from Ben again. “I know a wonderful French bistro and I know he’s free tomorrow night, it’s a Saturday Rey, you’re young and beautiful and I know you’re off work,” she looks to Ben and then back to Rey. “You can have a little fun.” 

“I’m not dating right now,” Rey says firmly. “I appreciate the offer but again, no.” 

Ben is still reeling. Rey has felt so much like she’s  _ his _ for a while now that this pawning her off onto  _ Poe of all fucking people _ , makes him want to riot. Poe who  _ climbs mountains with legs that work _ and Rey who is just  _ stuck at her awful job  _ but deserves to  _ have a little fun _ and oh isn’t he just a  _ tragedy.  _

He’s not even sure what happens after that, he’s not listening. He’s not even in his body. He just lets them talk, oblivious to Rey’s increasingly concerned expression and Leia’s self righteous pity. The last hour drags. He has not felt this bad about himself in a long time. 

Maybe Rey should give Poe a chance. Well okay. not _Poe—_ he’s _such_ a dick, but maybe _someone._ His mother is right, and he’s let his own crush blind him to reality. 

The days are long now, and doing that thing where late afternoon light gets stuck and glitches for a few extra hours before dusk follows, late and out of breath. It’s still sunny, but he knows Rey is leaving soon too, because she’s already been here too long, and she’s  _ at work right now  _ and it’s Friday so he won’t see her until Monday when  _ she comes back to work.  _

He cannot make Rey happy. He cannot give her what she truly deserves. It’s all he can think about.

***

Eventually, it might be weeks later, Leia leaves. The sun is finally starting to drop, a gruesome gash in a bright sky from this high up. The light is all weird, blood orange and shadows. 

“Okay,” Rey says, as soon the door closes behind Leia. “I really don’t like her. I’m sorry— I know it’s not my place to say but I am— I am just—“ 

Ben has been so numb for so many hours, he has to adjust the focus on his mind and it isn’t easy. Rey becomes sharper, and he realizes that she is absolutely pissed.

If he’s being honest with himself, deep down he knows things are about to get worse. He knows he’s going to make things worse. It’s what he always does.

“The way she talks about you? What the hell is that? If I wasn’t on the clock I would have lost it, Ben. I’m so sorry, I should have done more to keep her away. I didn’t think she would be so—“ 

He is only half listening. Or he’s all the way listening but he’s only half feeling. 

Rey comes closer to him, she knees down beside his chair so he has to look down at her. He thinks about how this is probably the height difference they would have, if he could stand. She puts her hands on his. 

“I know you’ve seen doctor Ackbar a few times for counseling but I think going more— or maybe together with her would help.” She brushes her thumb along his knuckles, brings their laced hands together to her lips— just like the first night they— “Or if you don’t want to see her anymore we can figure that out. I wouldn’t blame you but maybe I’m just projecting—“ 

“Rey,” Ben says, and she looks up at him. “Stop.”

“I just wanna help,” her voice is low, almost pained, and this entire day has been hell. 

“You don’t have to do this. You know you’re my  _ nurse _ , not my girlfriend.” His words come out harsher than he meant, or maybe just as harsh as he really wanted them to be, deep down. It kind of feels good to say it. It’s true. 

Rey drops their hands, still clasped. Ben unlaces their fingers.

“You know it’s different with us,” her voice is so quiet, her eyes somehow bigger, she looks young. It’s because he’s looking down at her, it must be. 

“What, you don’t jerk off all your patients?” 

The words, on their own, could almost be flirty, could almost be inviting, but they’re not. He wants them to hurt her, and he can see that they do. He sees the blow land, hears her surprised little gasp and he wants her to leave, to turn away from him and forget this conversation, this day. He wants a reset, maybe a weekend to bathe in self loathing followed by a week of mutually icy behavior that he can work toward thawing slowly, and freeze up again if he needs to, ad infinitum. But she doesn’t recoil from him, not even a little bit. She just looks up at him, looks  _ into _ him, sees right through him. 

“ _ Ben— _ “ she says, shaking her head softly. “I’m in love with you.” 

Instead of thawing, the ice between them shatters. 

He wants to tell himself that she just  _ thinks _ she’s in love with him, that it’s forced intimacy, a fluke, that if she could have him, she wouldn’t want him anymore.

But Rey says _ , I’m in love with you,  _ like she’s reading dessert off a menu, like she’s picturing tiramisu or chocolate cake. 

“I would never— I know you don’t  _ really _ think I’d  _ do that _ with everyone but— but I don’t cross these lines  _ at all  _ for other people. I don’t sleep in their beds and kiss their fingers or let them hold me while I cry and I certainly don’t  _ jerk them off.”  _ Her tone is fierce and her eyes are burning. She stands, starts to pace. When she turns back to him, she looks wild. “Don’t you feel this? Because I felt it  _ right away, _ Ben. And it just kept getting bigger. There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by that hasn’t made me love you more. Don’t you— don’t you feel it?” 

“Yes,” Ben says, his tone is desperate, his eyes are stinging. “I feel it, Rey, _of_ _course_ I feel it. It _haunts_ me. Because there isn’t a day that’s gone by that I haven’t thought about what could have been, if I had met you before or if I weren’t—“ he gestures to the chair. 

Rey makes a choked off sound, it’s not a laugh or a sob, it’s something in between. 

“I don’t give a fuck about the chair!” 

And that’s it, though, isn’t it? Because Ben has known for a while that what Rey feels for him is  _ different  _ and that the chair is part of the only Ben she knows. So he says it. 

“But I do.” 

He’s never seen her look like this. “You don’t want to be with me because you’re in a wheelchair?” She says it like it doesn’t make sense, like it's a language she can mimic but not understand.

“I don’t want to be reminded of all the things I can’t give you.” He swallows thickly. “I can’t climb Machu Picchu.” 

“Fuck Machu Picchu! What makes you think I wanna go climb a fucking pyramid? Does that even sound fun? That’s insane!” 

He thinks Rey’s idea of fun is probably movies about magic and making cookies so, maybe she has a point there. 

“Rey,” he shakes his head sadly. “We can’t,  _ I  _ can’t do that to you.” 

Rey goes red,  _ deep red _ , and if there had been all the ingredients for brioche on the counter, she probably would have smashed them to the floor. 

“ _No_ ,” she spits the word out, spits more of them too. “No absolutely not— you do _not_ get to pretend you’re acting on my behalf. That’s bullshit, Ben Solo. I am twenty six years old, _I_ get to decide what’s best for me, not you, not my grandfather, not anyone— ever. _Me_. If you want to tell me that you don’t want to be with me because— because you don’t like me, or you've decided you’re happier alone, or with someone else, or— whatever _you_ feel, then fine. But let me perfectly clear here, it’s _you_ not wanting to be with _me._ Because if it was my choice, I wouldn’t be your _fucking_ _nurse_ , I’d be your girlfriend.” 

Ben’s heart is actually breaking, he’s never felt anything like it. 

“Rey,” he says, he sounds wrecked. “I— _need_ you. Not in some big, romantic way, I mean I literally _need_ _you_. You do so much for me, it’s so much work that you get paid to do it, how could I just ask you to— to do all of this when— when I can’t give you _anything_? That’s not a _partner_ , Rey, that’s a _parasite_.” 

He can see the anger leave her, but it isn’t understanding or acceptance or confusion. It’s just pure grief. Before he can think, she is on her knees again, her hands on him again, she’s holding on too tightly. He can feel her pulse, it’s racing. 

“Ben,” she touches his arms, his face, his ears. “You give me so much. You listen to me, without ever interrupting me like, not even once. You’re  _ funny _ , you make me laugh. You make me feel appreciated, and useful, and you never complain about me when I’m lazy or unprofessional. My days fly by with you, I wake up so excited to get here and I dread the minute I have to leave. I  _ miss you _ when I’m not with you. Sometimes I miss you when you’re in the other room. I’ve never seen anyone work so hard, so fiercely, but you’re too hard on yourself, Ben. You cannot understate how far you have come, and how much farther you will come, you can do so much for yourself now and  _ even if you couldn’t _ — even if you ended up back at square one, or fucking  _ worse _ , it wouldn’t matter to me.” He doesn’t know what to say, but she isn’t finished. “If it was me who got hurt, if it was the other way around, wouldn’t you want to—“ she stops talking, and she catches her breath, like she’s been running. “When you love someone, you just want them not to hurt. The rest doesn’t matter. Do you not— do you not feel that way about me?” 

“Of course I do,” the words spill out, he doesn’t want to take them back. They’re true. She looks about as as sad as he feels which is to say unspeakably so. 

“You’re holding onto something that’s gone, Ben. And it’s going to cost you what’s right in front of you, within your reach, and this, what we have, it’s good. It’s really good, just like this. Without  _ fucking Machu Picchu _ .” 

She’s crying, the quiet kind of tears that are hot and impossible to control. 

“I think—“ she swallows, but she doesn’t look away from him, “I think if I had this for real, if I had you and we could do  _ this _ , just this, without clock-ins and codes of conduct and—  _ clothing _ ,” her cheeks turn pink. “It would be more love in one place than I’ve ever had. This is enough for me, Ben.” Her face is serious, her eyes still leaking. “Is it enough for you?”

He wants to tell her  _ yes _ , but he— he hasn’t even let himself  _ think _ he could have this, not in the kind of way Rey is talking about, and the idea of taking it now is terrifying and rash and illogical and ill advised. 

“I don’t know,” it’s the best he can do. “I— I don’t know.” 

Rey sniffs, a fresh wave of tears coming over and she sobs a little, standing again. 

Just then, the door opens 

“Hey guys,” the voice startles them both so much, Ben cannot believe this is a scene someone could just  _ walk into.  _ Rey looks equally shocked. Mitaka, bless him, seems oblivious. 

“I’ve gotta go,” Rey says, she doesn’t even look at Ben. How could they have lost track of time like that? His eyes track Rey as she rushes to grab her bag and then brushes past Mitaka on her way out. 

“Is she okay? She was crying,” he says. 

“Her cat died,” Ben says, wheeling himself away from the living room. 

“Must have been a hell of a cat, she looked really upset when—“ 

“I’m going to bed, don’t come in unless there’s a fire, and even then, make sure it’s a big one if you’re gonna wake me up.” 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m being stalked on twitter and it’s making me spiral into unimaginable anxiety but luckily this was already written 🙃🙃 your comments and love for this story have been so inspiring. I can’t thank you guys enough :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The angst is over :)

Ben slams his bedroom door. 

This day has been too much, he can’t think, he feels like he’s only had half of his mental facilities since his mom tried to set Rey up with Poe. 

Rey, who loves him. Rey, who wants to be with him. 

He can’t excuse away her behavior, he can’t pretend it’s nothing, or that he isn’t worthy of it, and he has nowhere left to land except on the fact that if he wants her, he can have her, he just has to have her  _ like this.  _

_ Is it enough for you?  _

He thinks about Rey in his clothes, in his bed, the way she eats his food, the way she laughs at his jokes and still,  _ enthusiastically _ , plays chess with him so terribly and so genuinely that it’s one of his favorite things in the world. He likes to listen to her explain movies to him, even if he absolutely already understands what’s going on, because he likes her voice more than he likes whatever is on screen, and it would drive him  _ insane _ if it was anyone else but it doesn’t, because it’s Rey. 

_ This, just as it is.  _

He tries out a new fantasy, one which, surprisingly, he has never really dwelt on. He has flashes of it, images that have come to him unbidden, but usually when he retreats into his head and he can be the version of himself he wants to be, he lets those ideas play out instead. 

In this new fantasy, Rey is his girlfriend, something he has thought about a lot in his Other Fantasy. But now he is just Ben, not Then-Ben. He has no nurse, he has a girlfriend who helps him sometimes and who is able to make sure he gets out in a fire. He lets himself think about all of the things he can do alone now, shower, use the bathroom, get around the apartment, make a handful of meals and certainly order delivery, he can play video games and lift weights and write, he can even jerk off, although he doesn’t often, because it takes a lot longer and it’s different and— in this fantasy, he decides he’s a little more used to it, a little more practiced, and that he has— help. 

He pictures waking up with Rey but this time she’s naked, and she lets him hold her down tease her nipples until she can’t stand it and begs him to let her ride his face. He does, of course he does. With his arms strong, there’s more he can do. He’s good with his hands, he can keep her happy, keep her cumming and satisfied, even if it looks different than he thought it would. 

He imagines that they eat together, _every_ _meal_ , they have breakfast in bed, naked. They play video games and she sits on his lap while they play, wiggling around and of course, naked. They read to each othed, also naked, but pressed together this time, words hushed and quiet between them. He cooks dinner and she makes dessert. When they use the kitchen together she can reach the things he can’t and he can take things in and out of the oven for her so she doesn’t burn her fingers when she rushes. 

They even go out, he can feed himself and do the big, private things alone, and participate in whatever game night Rey has with roommates or take her out for ice cream when it’s hot. And maybe someone does try to pray over him or mistakes her for his nurse, but so what? Is that a reason to give the rest of it up? Even if he stops improving, he’s come far enough to not need someone there. In his fantasy, Rey can even go to work during the day while he stays home to write. Or, because he wants to spend all the time with her he possibly can, in he imagines keeping her on as his nurse, and she lives comfortably with him, maybe puts her baked goods in shops. He doesn’t know what she wants, but it doesn’t matter. If she doesn’t stay with him all day she still comes home to him, she eats the food he makes and she sleeps in his bed, and touches his body—  _ the body he has now. _

It’s heady, that thought, so much more personal and so much more real. Rey's hands on his legs, letting her take his catheter out again, because he isn’t ashamed now, and because she doesn’t care, just wants it out of the way so she can touch him and taste him and put him inside of her body. 

Ben can’t breathe. He has to close his eyes, and let the weight of the fantasy settle over him. 

_ This is enough for me, Ben. Is it enough for you?  _

Yes. It’s enough. It’s more than enough. 

_ More love in one place than he’s ever known.  _

He doesn’t text. Partly because it’s so late by the time he feels sure of anything and partly because this feeling is so new and he needs to give it a minute to take root, needs to sleep on it at the very least. 

He will text her in the morning.

***

He doesn’t text Rey first, he wakes up to a text from her.

_ Rey: I quit.  _

It was sent an hour ago, and his vision sort of swims and dips for a moment. 

Another text, sent just a minute later. 

_ Rey: I’m on my way over now.  _

Ben barely has time to get out of bed and get a pot of coffee going. Hux is there, and it strikes Ben as redundant. Unnecessary. He doesn’t want anyone else here when Rey gets here. 

“Hey,” Ben says. “Uhh— can I ask you to leave?” Hux looks a little offended. “I mean  _ legally _ , with my current status, do you have to be here?” 

“Doctor Holdo says no,” Hux says, “but your mother said yes.” 

“Right okay, well I’m thirty five, and this is my house, so surely my authority beats hers, right?”

Hux looks awkward, and then shrugs. “I mean I guess. Legally yes, but if something happens well— that woman is uh— intense.” 

Ben nods. “Okay. I say this with nothing but love, and gratitude but— please get out of here.” 

“Is there a time you want me to return?” 

“No, take the day, I’ll text you by nine tonight if I need you to come in tomorrow. If you don’t hear from me, don’t worry about it.” 

“Are you gonna like, commit suicide, because I might actually be in trouble if you do.” 

“No, asshole, I’m gonna get laid.” 

_ Maybe, potentially. If it goes well.  _

Hux looks at him a little mischievously, but he doesn’t comment, just grabs his overnight bag and smiles at Ben as he’s leaving, something dangerously close to pride glinting on his face.

Hux has only been gone a few minutes when Rey comes up, she lets herself in with his key. 

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi.” 

“Where is Hux?” 

“I sent him home.” 

She looks like she’s been crying, her eyes are red. Ben wants to hold her. She doesn’t look surprised by his words. 

“Did you know I could send him home?” 

“Oh. Yes.” 

“You didn’t wanna mention it?” Ben isn’t really upset, but it’s still a little infantilizing that she thought he couldn’t handle being alone. 

“I didn’t want you to be able to tell me to leave.” She winces a little as she says it. 

“I wouldn’t have told you to leave.” 

She smirks at him, incredulous, and he relents. 

“Maybe once or twice,” he admits, “but I would have asked you to come back.” 

“Yeah? Is that what you’re doing now?”

Sort of, but also no. It’s not coming back, it’s moving on together. 

“Did you really quit?” His voice is shaky. She nods. 

“I was  _ way _ past unprofessional and it just— I couldn’t do it anymore, once you knew how I felt. Once it wasn’t a secret it was just— wrong.” 

Ben nods, and then Rey just just looks at him, waiting. 

“I thought a lot about what you said,” his words are slow, and careful. She looks nervous. She bites her bottom lip and when her teeth release it it’s plump and red. “I am—“ he breaks off, holds his hand out to her. “Will you come here?”

Rey looks at his hand, shakes her head. “No, just tell me what you want to tell me Ben I— I can’t handle waiting.” 

She looks  _ so  _ nervous, part of him wants to just tell her he loves her and everything is fine but— that’s not how he needs to do this. 

“I’m really scared, Rey. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything as much as I want you,  _ this _ . And I’ve spent so much time imagining what  _ could have been  _ but the truth is if I’d found you before, I probably would have just— done nothing. I spend a lot of time deifying the person I was, but the truth is I would have been scared of this back then, too. And maybe it’s a bigger fear now, or a more concrete fear. It’s something solid I can pin my fears to and say  _ here are real reasons why I can’t _ .” His voice breaks a little, but he swallows and keeps talking before he can start overthinking. “My entire world ended eighteen months ago. I spent half the time since then unable to do  _ anything  _ and wondering why the hell it even mattered. I worked hard because it was either sweat hard or think hard, and I didn’t want to think. I didn’t even want to have a reason to push through, and then suddenly I did, and then I didn’t want you to be the only reason. I had to remember that I was gonna lose you, it was the only way to— to keep my head on straight, to not let you become my entire world in the absence of my old one, and so I just didn’t let myself think about it, about the  _ reality _ of it. I put everything I wanted into a place I could never reach it. Sure, I could want it, but I couldn’t need it. Does that make sense?” 

Rey’s chest is rising and falling so fast. Her face is still a mess of emotions, of nerves and fear and sadness and— hope. She walks over to him and slowly takes his hand. The relief is immediate, and warm, and it gives him strength. 

“This has been the worst two years of my fucking life, Rey, but it’s also been— good, in a lot of ways. I learned a lot about patience, and about resilience, and about love.” 

Rey slides onto his lap, he can feel her shaking— adrenaline, probably. “Me too,” she whispers. Ben squeezes her hand. 

“This new normal is fucking weird, but I can’t imagine it without you. I try to, and it— it just fucking sucks. But I don’t think that’s because I need your help, Rey. I think it’s just because I need your heart.” 

“Ben,” she says, and it’s almost a sob. She closes her eyes, her hands bunch up in his shirt and she’s still shaking— so badly now. He runs his hands up and down her spine, giving her a minute to take in his words. He can feel her relief, he can feel her hope. He can feel her whole body against his. 

“I love you,” he tells her. “I love the life I have with you, and if you were to stay on as just my nurse, and spend the days with me until the time came for you to move on, I would love every second of it, just as it’s been. But I  _ want _ more, Rey. I want— I want so many things. I want to be alone,” he laughs a little bit, but it’s so fucking true, “ _ and with you!  _ I want to be with you, I just mean— I don’t want nurses all the time I want to maybe just, spend the day alone, sometimes, in my house, and have that be okay. I want you to do whatever makes you happy, nursing or baking or just being here with me, as— as my partner. But whatever you want to do, I want it too, as long as I’m not—“ He stops, works his jaw for a moment. “I don’t wanna be  _ work _ , Rey. I wanna be the home you come back to.” 

She kisses him. Her hands come up to hold his face and she presses her soft little mouth right onto his, parting his lips with hers and then deepening the kiss, tasting him. His arms wrap around her, gripping her hips, a hand moves over her belly, a thumb across her nipple through her thin bra. She huffs against him. 

“I— I didn’t wanna rush you,” she tells him. “I thought I fucked this up, thought I got too impatient and impulsive but I had to tell you. Ben, I couldn’t not tell you.” 

He takes her mouth again and groans when she bites his lip. Her fingers trace the shell of his ear and he shivers. 

“I’m glad you told me— I’m never gonna  _ feel _ ready, I don’t think. But I wanna try. I don’t want to do anything that hurts you, I don’t want to lose you. I’ll work harder, I’ll get better at this too, at being afraid, at still being there for you anyway, I promise—“ 

“I believe you,” she pushes the words into his mouth with hers, and then reaches down and tugs her shirt off. Ben’s hands press back against her hot skin. “I want this, I want you, so much it hurts me sometimes.” Ben mouths at her collarbone, her neck, kissing slowly so she can speak. “But I was wrong to push you so hard. I thought you— I thought you were gonna let me go. I thought maybe I— that I didn’t give it enough time, I didn’t make you love me enough—“ 

Ben pulls her face to back to his, kissing her harder, loud and wet and messy. 

“I loved you right away,” he tells her, “a little more each day.” He gives her own words back to her, and she rolls her hips, thighs rubbing together. “What do you wanna do?” His fingers find a nipple again, pulls at it. He’s so torn between wanting to devour her and wanting to just sit and look at her and listen to her and talk and talk. 

But they talk all the time, and they’ll talk again— after. 

“I wanna touch you,” she says as she touches him, “in bed. Where I can really reach you.” 

Ben wheels them both into his bedroom. Rey jumps up and begins undressing as soon as they’re in his room and he laughs a little, pushing himself up and into bed. She’s waiting for him, naked, by the time he gets his legs up. She starts to undress him but he grabs her wrists, holding her still. His eyes move down her body, her tan skin, the freckles on her hips and shoulders, the swell of her breasts, dusty nipples pebbled up and reaching toward him. 

“I’ve never seen you.” Rey flushes a little, bit but she moves her arms to her sides and rises onto her knees, scooting closer to him. “You’re beautiful,” he tells her, and the flush on her cheeks creeps further down her neck, to her chest. He tugs her a little closer and she brings her hands to his face, gently putting them in his hair as he dips his face to lick her tits. He mouths at her greedily, tongue rushing over her nipples, nipping at the tender underside of her tits. He likes the way her hands tighten in his hair when he bites her or blows cold air against the spots he got wet with his tongue. Rey pulls his face up from her breasts to her mouth and kisses him again, tugging at his shirt. 

He lets her undress him. It is not the first time, but it’s so different. When he couldn’t do this for himself, her hands were careful and quick, she would take his weight as he leaned on her and then as soon as she could, she would be gone from him. Her eyes never lingered if they didn’t have to, her movements were always perfunctory and steady without being awkward. 

Now— her hands tremble. As soon as his shirt is over his head she’s kissing his skin, sucking a bruise into his collarbone, running her fingernails down his chest and belly hard enough to leave little red marks and make him hiss with pleasure. She’s so eager, and she hooks her fingers into his pants and briefs in one go, tugging carefully so she doesn’t get caught on any of his tubing. 

He lets her maneuver his legs, since he can’t help her get his pants off, and then she expects him to make quick work of the catheter, but she doesn’t touch it yet, instead she presses her body against his. He can feel her hot, wet cunt against his hip bone, she rubs herself on him as she pulls him back for another kiss. Her mouth is fierce against his, the kiss is sloppy and wet and she sucks at his mouth, her hands on this face. He touches her back, her hair, her ass— squeezing tight, pulling her closer. When she pulls back she’s panting and she looks close to tears. 

“Are you okay?” 

She nods quickly, but doesn’t speak right away, catching her breath. 

“I am I just— I’ve wanted this for a really long time and it’s— a lot.” 

“We don’t have to do anything right now,” he tells her, “we can stay like this.” 

She kisses him again, and he thinks maybe that’s all they’ll do tonight, just kiss while their bodies are close together. But then she’s moving again, a glint in her eye, and she’s reaching between his legs. 

Normally she would use gloves for this, but she doesn’t this time. She checks the bag and then eases the tubing out of his penis. He’s used to the sensation now, and it’s always felt painfully personal to have her do this but now. Maybe because he  _ could _ do it, or because she  _ wants  _ to do it anyway, or because he knows what they’re going to do after— everything feels different. 

And then, once she’s set everything aside, she leans and kisses his thighs, touching his legs. 

Ben stills. His heart starts to race. His dick is still soft, resting against his leg. 

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” she says gently. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s— weird.” 

“What’s weird?” 

“Just the way they look, and feel— I don’t know.” 

“I love your legs,” she kisses his hip bone, the top of his thigh. “I think your body is so fucking hot.” 

Ben turns red. 

“Rey, you don’t— you don’t have to do that.” 

“Do what?” She kisses the inside of thighs, trailing down to his knees. 

“Lie to make me feel better about myself.” 

Rey’s hands are still on his legs which kind of tingle uncomfortably when they’re touched, but mostly just make him so self conscious he can’t think. 

“Did you think you were hot before the accident?” 

The question surprises him. He didn’t expect to be asked about Then-Ben while in bed— to compare. He wants to say  _ yes  _ but he’s not sure that’s true, once he thinks about it. 

“Not particularly.” 

“I did,” she tells him, touching his dick now too, it’s soft in her hand, she’s not stimulating him enough to increase blood flow like he needs. “I’ve seen old pictures of you, and you were really hot Ben.” 

He doesn’t like this, and he’s about to tell her so when she says, “and I think you’re really fucking hot now, too. I love your body. I’ve seen it a lot, Ben, and I’ve thought about touching you for  _ so _ long.” 

She presses another kiss down to the inside of his knee, then trails lower, kissing his thin calf, lifting his leg up so she can rub him, mouth at him. 

It’s— a lot. It doesn’t feel  _ as _ weird now, not quite as tingly but it feels so  _ personal.  _ Like this is somehow more intense than dealing with the catheter.

“I think,” she kisses his skin again, “that you,” more kisses, “are so fucking sexy.”

“Rey,” he huffs indignantly. 

“I think about your body all the time, what I want to do to you.” She looks up at him, holds his gaze. “I think about you when I touch myself, and it’s always this version of you, Ben. Just like this,  _ this _ body, moving under mine.” 

His heart is beating so fast, he has to blink back tears. He closes his eyes, so he isn’t expecting it when she puts her mouth on his dick, and if his hips could jerk up they would, but they can’t, and so his fists ball tightly and he grunts. Rey takes all of him, he’s still soft, and she begins to suck on him. 

“Oh shit,” he groans, he can feel the blood slowly moving downward, can feel himself hardening under her hands, slowly, steadily. Rey moves her fingers down, pressing hard on the spot between his balls and his asshole. “Rey,” he whines, and he’s getting harder faster now. Her finger moves back and presses his hole, rubbing against him and Ben has  _ never—  _

She fumbles for something on the nightstand without letting go of his cock, which is still fits in her mouth, for the moment. She brings back the lube he uses for catheter tubes, slicking her fingers up and then pressing back against his hole. She looks up at him with wide, questioning eyes, and Ben nods. 

Rey pushes a finger into his body, working him open as she tongues his slit, his glans, sucking him down. Another finger joins the first and she crooks them. A new, hot and incredibly intense feeling courses through him and as she works her fingers he feels himself getting harder, harder, until she has to pull back because she can’t fit him in her mouth. He’s harder than he’s been since before his accident, and Rey looks down at his dick and huffs, switching to licking. 

“You’re fucking big,” she tells him, sliding her fingers out of his body and kissing the tip of his now fully hard cock. “Beautiful,” she licks his slit and Ben’s hands move into her hair. She takes him again, as much as she can, letting the head of his cock hit the back of her throat, letting Ben work her face against him. She pulls off after a minute or two and kisses his thighs again. Ben shivers. 

Rey straddles him, holding her weight on her thighs and then notching him against her hot little hole. 

“Do you want me to—“ he’s going to offer to stretch her, help her get ready, but then she slides down a bit and he realizes she’s absolutely soaked. 

“Just want you inside,” she says, and then her words trail off and her mouth hangs open as she slides down onto him. “Jesus,” she huffs, holding herself up once he’s halfway inside of her. 

“God your fucking tight,” he grunts, and he grips her hips. He can’t move up to meet her but that’s probably good right now, as she adjusts. “You should have let me—“

Rey leans down and kisses him, breathing him in as she slowly rocks her hips down in little circles. Both of them groan together when he bottoms out. 

“Better— like this—“ she huffs. “Better when— the stretch— Jesus Ben I might—“ 

She brings a hand between them and just swipes it over her clit. Then she gasps, and her nails bite into his shoulder and she starts to rock on him, mindless and tight, tighter—  _ holy shit.  _

Ben feels her cum, the way she clenches around him. Watches her face as she shatters, her little hands scrambling against him for purchase. 

“Holy shit,” he says, awed, as she collapses on him. 

“Sorry, oh my god, shit just give me a second and I’ll, I can,” she trails off, panting into his neck. He’s still inside her, still harder than he’s been in literally years. 

“Don’t fucking apologize, Jesus Christ Rey that was— I can’t believe you came that fast.” 

“I uhm, really want this,” she says sheepishly. “And you’re— really big, good big.” 

She starts to rock her hips again and Ben gasps. He grips her tighter. 

“You can— you can move me however you want, Ben.” 

He can’t move his body the way he wants to, but Rey lets him use hers, lets him hold her hips so he can set the pace. She grabs his face, kisses him and gasps into his mouth when he starts to fuck her faster. He lifts her up and brings her back down and she matches him, slowing down when he wants to push deep and hold there, kissing her, moving faster as he gets close. She lets him fuck him her hard, taking everything he gives her and whimpering “Yes,” and “Oh my god,” and “Thank you Ben, thank you,” as he does, as if she’s the one overcome with gratitude and not him. He’s never felt anything like this. 

“I’m— I’m gonna cum,” he grunts. 

She takes over for him, moving faster as she licks his ear, nips at his jaw and then kisses him. He grabs her face with one hand when he starts to cum, pressing his forehead to hers and looking into her eyes as she slides against him, as he fills her up. His other hand holds her down, not letting her pull back. She circles her hips gently to milk the last drops from him, kissing his cheeks which he realizes— dizzily, belatedly— are wet with tears. 

They stay like that for a long time, endless minutes before rey reluctantly eases off him. “I should clean up,” she says. 

But Ben grabs her wrist and the words are out before he can stop them. If he had control over his body, he would just flip her over, but he has to ask— and she has to be the one to— it’s all so much more intimate like this. 

“Can I?” 

Rey licks her lips, blushing a little but she nods. Ben adjusts himself so that he’s laying down and then Rey is straddling him again, but this time her pussy is right above his face and he can see his own cum leaking out of her. 

He grabs her hips and lowers her onto his face, wasting no time. He licks up into her, tasting himself in her freshly fucked cunt. She’s all red and swollen and loose as he cleans her up, licking everywhere he can reach and then settling his lips over her clit to  _ suck _ it into his mouth. He puts his fingers in her and she hisses, starts fucking herself against his hand roughly. 

He makes her cum like that, right into his mouth.

After, she collapses against him, unable to catch her breath and then, breathing slow and even as she sleeps. It’s so fucking cute he could die. He wants to stay just like this forever. He doesn’t wanna piss on her, though, so he carefully extracts himself from her body and slides out of bed and into his chair. 

He goes to wash himself up, slipping in a new catheter and putting on a pair of sweats. Then he goes to the kitchen and makes tea, too tired to cook properly, he slices cheese and fruit and puts it with crackers on a plate.

Rey wakes up as he’s getting back into bed and mumbles something as she wobbles off to the bathroom. She comes back after a minute and looks at the charcuterie plate with a smile, which fades away when she looks at Ben. 

“Pants,” she cries, ”are not allowed!” 

She climbs back into bed and tugs them off of him, kissing his legs as she does. Then she sits next to him, taking the snack plate with a smile. 

Ben feeds Rey with his fingers and it makes him tremble with something he doesn’t fully understand. They kiss around bites of apple and honey and goat cheese. Rey puts on Harry Potter and then presses close to him again, letting her hands roam over every bit of skin she can reach until they’re both drowsy, and then they fall asleep like that, tangled together.

The next day, when Rey makes cookies, she makes cookies naked and Ben decides that even his worst days will be okay, if they have moments like this in them; filled with chocolate, and Rey’s body, and their love. 

It is, absolutely, more than enough for him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! I can’t believe this is almost over! I love you guys so much, thanks for sticking with me :) next chapter is gonna be a bit in the future and Rey's POV.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :’)

Two Years Later

***

“Come on Solo!” Rey yells, throwing her arms in the air. She watches as her boyfriend steals the ball, spinning in a circle and then pushing off fast, hands careful to come down only once on his wheels in between dribbling. There’s a crowd of men around him but he fakes left and then passes the ball, speeding close to the hoop just in time for it to be passed back, and for him to shoot. It soars, swishing through the net and Rey jumps up, cheering. 

They’re off again in an instant, and Rey slides back down on the bench. 

“He is  _ seriously  _ strong,” Rose says. “It’s like every time I come to one of these things his arms have gotten bigger.” 

“He works out. A lot.” Rey smiles and Rose snorts, learning into her as they laugh. 

“We get it,” Finn says, but he’s smiling too. “You and your monster armed boyfriend bang constantly.” 

Rey swats him playfully. It’s true, Ben’s arms are bigger now than they were even before his accident. His shoulders are broad and his chest is barreled. But his body looks different, she knows, and it’s a constant struggle for him to accept, to love himself. He’s getting there. 

Ben has the ball again and he moves around the other players. He has a different chair for basketball than he does the rest of the time. It’s lower to the ground and easier to spin out and turn fast without tipping. 

The clock is counting down, fifteen seconds, fourteen, thirteen. Ben passes the ball again, swerves, dodges, and then makes it back to the hoop just as his teammate’s shot misses. He catches the rebound easily and sends it back up. The ball glides through the net, the buzzer sounds. Rey cheers again, along with the entire stadium, and then she rushes down to the court. 

Ben is so sweaty, his hair is held out of his face with one of those terry cloth headbands she used to think were only for tennis players in the seventies. It’s an alarmingly good look on him. Ben takes her hand and tugs, pulling her into his lap. 

“Gross!” She cries out and then giggles as he holds her against his sticky body, nuzzling her neck with his sweaty face and then kissing her. She touches his damp hair, letting his tongue part her lips. 

“Guys  _ stop _ , we’re right here,” Finn says, rolling his eyes. There’s no malice in it, though. Rey knows how badly both Finn and Rose were rooting for her to be with Ben, how long they listened to her cry about how much she loved him and how scared she was he wouldn’t love her back, how thrilled they were when he finally started hanging out with them. Finn just likes giving everyone shit. 

“You’re just mad because your boyfriend is in Costa Rica writing about wild birds or whatever, and so no one is here to make out with you.” Rey fake pouts at him and Finn fake sneers.

“I know what will cheer everyone up. Ice cream,” Rose says with a smile. 

“Let me shower and change, I’ll meet you out front in a minute,” Ben kisses Rey once more before shoving her off of his lap with a grunt, making her laugh again. 

Sometimes, Rey cannot believe how happy she is. How happy  _ Ben _ is. How happy they make each other. She follows Finn and Rose outside where they sit on a bench in the sunshine until Ben emerges, hair damp with water instead of sweat. Rey jumps up, sliding behind his chair to push and he tilts his head back to kiss her, Spider-Man style. 

“Where to?” Rose asks. 

“Let’s go to A Lotta Gelato, they have the best dipped cones.” 

The four of them head out through the city, away from the YMCA and toward sugar. The sun is shining but it isn’t gross hot. It’s perfect ice cream weather. Finn gets strawberry and Rose gets coffee and Rey and Ben both get chocolate, and Ben checks Rey with the edge of his cone, smearing ice cream on her chin and then feigning an apology as he pulls her face down and licks it off. 

“Guys seriously, get a room,” Finn says, but he’s smiling. 

“You know you love it,” Ben says. “Bu for real, thanks for coming guys, I know it’s a bit of a trek from Brooklyn.” 

“Nah we love getting into the city,” Rose says, “plus we never get to see Rey since you stole her from us, and I’ve been having withdrawals.” 

“Funny,” Rey says, “I don’t even think about you guys.” 

“Probably because of all the dick you're getting.” 

Rey snorts and swats at Rose playfully. She does miss them, and they know it. She still texts Rose every day and they all try to meet up at least every other week for drinks or movies or whatever. 

Rey works three shifts a week at the hospital because, as she said to Ben,  _ I didn’t spend all that time in nursing school just to bake all day, _ but really, mostly she bakes. She’s got treats in sixteen coffee shops around the city now, and they had Ben’s kitchen certified so she can use it professionally. Most days, she makes some delicious treat while he writes for a few hours, and then they work out together for an hour and then Ben works out on his own for  _ another _ hour, before Rey convinces him to come play video games or watch movies or make out with her. 

When she works at the hospital, usually from 6am to 6pm on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays, Ben has the house to himself. It’s wild what that alone has done to improve his mental health. Once or twice she has come home to an absolute disaster, dishes smashed on the floor or an entire box of pasta spilled across the kitchen and once, a slightly blackened wall where he’d started a,  _ very small, Rey, like it hardly even counts _ , fire. 

They had fought, then, and Ben agreed to only order takeout when she was gone, if only for the fact that she would worry constantly and because she cried into his neck about how she can’t stand to lose him. 

She knows how much it costs him, letting go of little aspects of freedom. She knows he does this one mostly for her. 

Rey finishes her ice cream and Ben lets her have the bottom of his cone, and then they walk Finn and Rey back to the subway before hugs are passed around and they head home. 

“Hey Charlie,” Rey calls as they enter the building. 

“Rey of sunshine! How’s it hanging?” 

“Ben won his game,” Rey says with a huge smile. 

Ben rolls his eyes but she can see how pleased he is. 

“I’d feel better if the other team was Chelsea or Harlem, but the LES never brings it quite as hard.” 

“I’m sure you’ll crush them too when the time comes,” Charlie says, “guns like that.” 

Rey bites her lip and gives him the universal hand signal for  _ niceee _ before laughing and wheeling Ben into the elevator. 

The apartment looks different now then it did a few years ago. It’s very obviously  _ theirs.  _ Rey bought new curtains which are green and not black, and there are tons of plants now, along with soft pillows and throws on the couch and candles fucking everywhere. Ben’s once sterile looking kitchen is piled with food processors and mixing bowls and cookie cutters. There are icing tubes and fondant ingredients and rainbow sprinkles everywhere you look. Their bedroom has string lights and an absolute fuck ton of Harry Potter Funko Pops because hey, it’s Rey’s room too now. 

“Okay, I need a shower,” Rey says once they’re inside. 

“Same,” Ben says, and Rey rolls her eyes. 

“You literally just showered.” 

“I rinsed,” he argues. 

“You just wanna see me naked.” 

“Yep,” Ben tugs Rey and she falls into his lap with a giggle, lets him push her through the house to the bathroom. They undress, and Ben transfers himself easily to his shower chair once he’s naked and free of tubing. Rey follows him, sighing as the hot water rushes over her. 

She lets Ben wash her, knows how much he likes to do it. She remembers the first time she washed him, how stiff and uncomfortable he was, how he was strapped into the chair at the time because he didn’t have the strength to sit up alone, or catch himself if he started to slip. 

He soaps up a loofa and drags it over her skin, making her shiver a little. He washes her legs, and belly and arms, her tits—  _ I think they’re clean now, seriously Ben—  _ and then reaches between her legs with his fingers, cleaning her and then dipping into her body. Rey grips the edge of his chair as he fucks into her with his hand, tilting her face down to meet his and they kiss as the water runs down their faces, onto their lips. He makes her cum after only a few minutes, he knows how to play her body perfectly by this point. 

They don’t get dressed again, once they’re out of the shower, only toweling off enough to tumble into bed where she works him up to an erection and then slides down over him. 

She fucks herself fast on his body, fingernails digging into his shoulders as she whispers,  _ I love you _ , and then cums on his cock. She lets him use her after, a little slower, a little deeper, until he’s gasping against her lips and shivering against her. 

Sticky with sweat and cum and probably needing  _ another _ shower they won’t take, they curl up and push all the blankets away. 

Rey draws shapes on Ben’s chest, chasing them with kisses, and then inching her way down his body to kiss his legs as well. He lets her, she isn’t sure he really likes it, but she thinks he knows how much  _ she _ likes it at this point, making him feel wanted all over. 

After, Rey turns the fan on to cool them down and they put on old episodes of Star Trek. Ben writes a little bit, he’s working on his own story now, and he doesn’t want her to see it until it all comes together, so Rey paints her toenails, and then Ben’s too. 

When dusk falls, they order take out and Rey has the delivery guy leave it outside the door so she doesn’t have to put clothes on. 

They eat on the couch, because Ben won’t let her have anything with sauce in bed, a battle she has chosen not to fight, and when she’s stuffed full of chicken and rice she climbs most of the way on top of him, smushing their sticky bodies together in what she calls cuddling and Ben refers to as  _ smothering _ , although she knows he likes it too. 

She is so brilliantly, incandescently happy as she falls asleep, it seems almost too good to be true that when she wakes up, she can do it all over again. 

Every day, just like this, forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO much for your love while I was writing this. Check out my twitter for updates and info on other projects, as well as ways to support me if you’re interested :)

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't already, follow me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/violethoure666) :)


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